Dragon's Whispers
by phyreblade
Summary: Maikhel Lavellan survives yet another encounter with a dragon, only to be gifted with a precious friendship he never once anticipated. It's a bonding that will change the world of Thedas before it's done. M!Inquisitor Lavellan with a Dorian romance, and appearance by other Dragon Age characters as appropriate. Rated M, just in case.
1. Chapter 1 -- The Dragon's Dead

**This brief story is the result of a prompt proposed by the Fellowship of the Cullenites Writers, nearby. While so many of the prompts that inspire me tend to take one single chapter page in length and examination, this one was exceptional enough that it will require a bit more consideration. So it will end up with multiple chapters before I'm done.**

 **The original prompt, as we begin: "During one of the dragon fights, an egg is found and brought back to Skyhold and hatched. Dragon grows and becomes a mount for the Quizzy. It is not a mindless animal but an intelligent creature (like dragon riders of Burk, Hiccup and Toothless) and from this relationship a new understanding and partnership is created between dragons and the other races."**

 **Please remember, that all characters I describe here belong to Bioware and Electronic Arts, and they're only incredible enough I have to write their stories down. As always, my thanks to Bioware for creating such an incredible world for me to explore!**

* * *

The dragon was dead.

That was obvious enough, as the creature was splayed wide on its back where it'd tumbled down from rearing up in one final blast of fiery rage towards the wide, yawning sky overhead. How terrible it screamed up at the sky, just as it was dying. Wild and untamed, like the violent storm of lightning that streamed out from its mouth – hot and extraordinary even in its death throes.

It sent a shuddering thrill down the entire length of Maikhel's spine as it raised up onto its hindquarters and screamed like that. As it raged and flailed against the dying … Maikhel actually raised his own fist up and yelled back at it, yelled his own incredible salute. A hailing farewell, tinged with respect and sorrow at the very same time.

Now the dragon was dead, so that it laid on its back there on the ground. Steam rose up all around it, the marsh and the bog seeming fired and hot in welcome of the dead beast. Its wings were crushed underneath, the shimmer of thin, leathery wings obscured under the huge weight of dead dragon, and its head lolled backwards along the ground.

It was the colors of the beast that Maikhel marveled over when he first caught sight of it. Even now, even dead, the thing was beautiful, glorious, and absolutely grand. Such an incredible wash of the most brilliant colors – purples and blues, and gold all down along its underside, from its tail all the way up to the very tip of its long, sharp snout lined with wide, dagger-sharp teeth – until the entire body of the creature seemed this incredible burst of sheer, wondrous color that echoed the power under its skin and in the air all around it.

The ground no longer shook underfoot from the dragon's mere stomping jumps, the air no longer sizzled from its lightning calls, the sky no longer pulsed from the beat of its wings. The dragon really was dead. Complete with its mouth hanging open and silent, with its thick tongue draped out from between its quiet, gaping jaws.

And blood, of course. There was blood everywhere, on the ground and over all of them as they stood there panting in the aftermath of the incredible battle. It smelled hot and coppery, like everything else in this violent, steamy place, and Maikhel breathed in slowly to catch his breath back. Then Iron Bull leaned his head backwards and shouted a vibrant cry of celebration at the sky overhead, "Fuck yes! I fucking love you, boss! This has been the best fucking day _ever_! Let's do this fucking again!"

Cassandra blinked up at the Qunari warrior from where she was tiredly leaning, with her shield hanging limply against her side and the tip of her sword held pointedly into the hard soil at her feet. So that she didn't fall over out of fatigue, most likely. Now she panted wearily, "As if anyone here would like to fuck you. And please. Just. Stop. Talking." She shook her head slowly, her ears obviously still ringing from being so close when the dragon screamed and screamed.

Iron Bull laughed loudly, though. And outrageously. Like he did everything, really. Then he reached out to lift the dragon's dead, dripping tongue with the edge of his huge battleaxe, and boomed aloud, "Give me five minutes off to the side here, and I could so change your mind about what you'd like of me, Cassandra." Then Iron Bull glanced over at Maikhel, smiling widely, "Look, boss. More of that dragon-tongue pudding shit the cooks at Skyhold make that you practically licked from the plate the last time we had some. I never did figure out how they made it so yummy, mind you. Must be an Orlesian trick or something."

Maikhel slanted the Qunari a thin, weak-hearted grin. He reached up to smooth his fingers along the edge of his pointed ear, a nervous habit that marked the ending of every battle he survived. Just checking to see he still kept his ears attached to his head, is what Iron Bull laughingly called it back when they first started running along together. Of course he was more accurate than he really knew, only because Maikhel never told him the story.

He told Dorian, rather. Which might be why the Tevinter he'd fallen in love with made it so much a custom of gently brushing Maikhel's ears whenever the battles were finished. Except Dorian was safe at Skyhold by now, and Maikhel was left clasping his own pointed ears all by himself here in the wilds of the Exalted Plains.

Dorian would probably spank his palm flat against the slender curve of Maikhel's backside if he knew they'd agreed to battle another dragon after he returned to Skyhold. Maikhel's gaze shifted to the gentle tendrils of smoke he could see drifting up through the sky over the beefy curve of Iron Bull's shoulder, marking where the Orlesian ramparts were located in and around the Plains.

He still wasn't entirely certain how to discern one Orlesian battlement from the next … even the armors all seemed the same, and never mind how Vivienne and Cassandra seemed so perfectly able to tell them apart. Perhaps it was the colors that gleamed against their armors, except that there seemed so little uniformity to the coloration of the various Orlesian camps they encountered.

No. To Maikhel, every Orlesian they came across looked and sounded very much the same. So that he waited until they started shouting and running at them before deciding whether or not they were enemies. Kind of hard to miss at that point, when one of the "namby-pamby Orlesian lapdogs" as Iron Bull referred to them, was calling aloud and lifting his blade to rush at them, "You Inquisition! The Freemen will keep the Dales from you!" Since any human yelling about taking the Dales tended to fire Maikhel's blood, he generally met them with almost eager bitterness, his staff flying with fierce gouts of flame and fire.

But the Orlesians in those ramparts insisted they needed the Inquisitor's help, that the dragon was overclose and dangerous as it flew overhead and snapped up horses and oxen from their camps. The men quailed back from the threat, pointing at the sky and insisting to him in those singsong prettified voices, how nothing less than the Inquisitor had to save them from the impending threat. Vivienne hummed approvingly, "Show them, Inquisitor. It's so much important to show them. Always." They had heard of the dragon battles Maikhel made, and they said how it was, that he might be the only thing standing between them and utter annihilation.

Everyone seemed to believe only Maikhel could save them. Everyone. From dragons, from holes in the sky, from giants, and monsters, and undead. From Titans and red lyrium. From Corypheus.

All of them counted on him.

So he'd slogged through the bog to reach this spot and fight this dragon today, too. Because why not save some more people?

Only now he was sure the Orlesians had only made some game of the thing. The dragon was so deep in the wet marsh, so far surrounded by rocks and mire and far from a risk to a single one of the Orlesian lines. They only wanted a showing, a story to tell back home in Val Royeaux. Something to brag over and boast, "I saw the Inquisitor take on that dragon … I was there!" The damned Orlesians, with their damned tourneys and pretty clothes and singing tones. Balls, maybe they just wanted to see him lose his pointy ears!

So Maikhel sighed and bent the briefest smile towards Iron Bull, "Who would have supposed that reducing meat into a paste could taste so good? Although Orlesians do eat snails, don't they? I believe Varric was complaining about that at some point." Iron Bull smirked as he smacked the dragon's tongue with his weapon yet again. But then Vivienne ambled around the back end of the dead dragon, gliding smoothly as if the entire battle had been nothing more than a lark in one of Val Royeaux' parks and sighing, "Pate, in fact."

Maikhel frowned at her. Not the least because he couldn't quite understand how Vivienne managed to appear so unaffected. Even Iron Bull looked like he'd been cooked several times over by the dragon's lightning breath attacks. His own hair felt hot, and he was pretty sure it was still standing on sizzling end and frizzing from the static that hung low in the air even now that the dragon was keeled over. And here was Vivienne, looking as stately and gorgeous and even _clean_ as ever.

Curious as usual, Maikhel had to ask her, "What exactly is pa-tay?"

Vivienne explained in that crooning drawl of a voice. The one Maikhel thought was the most perfectly proper and refined sort of tone, that he struggled to emulate whenever he was plunked in that blasted chair in Skyhold's great hall where everyone clung to his every word. He'd never managed the feat, though.

Vivienne was in some unique class all her own, far removed from the rest of the more backwards rough-necks that surrounded her, and no one would ever quite manage such utter excellence. Such was Maikhel's own belief, at least. It was a wonder he liked her so much, really. But Vivienne enjoyed teaching and instructing; and Maikhel's endless curiosity appealed to her. The two of them dealt well together, and bantered regularly over what Cassandra insisted was the "most meaningless drivel".

Now was no different. "Pate, my dear. It's a mixture of ground meat and fat minced into a spreadable paste and mixed with herbs and spices, sometimes wine or brandy. It's usually best served cold after chilling over several days. It's likely why Skyhold can produce such amazing servings of the dish."

"Ugh," Cassandra groaned loudly. "I can not believe we're discussing food as we stand here over a bloody heap of dead dragon."

"Are you joking?" Iron Bull shook his immense horned head, so that small droplets of blood went flying in all directions rather than continue dripping down over his face. Maikhel rather thought he looked like a dragon himself just then. "The smell of all this blood is making my stomach growl for a good, thick piece of meat. Steaks, maybe a potato. Cooking's optional."

Cassandra moaned pitifully, "I believe I'm going to be sick."

But Iron Bull flung both his hands wide apart, standing between the dead dragon and the Seeker's green face, "Back away then! Last thing we need is the Inquisitor's newest trophy splattered with the contents of your weak-assed stomach!" Cassandra harrumphed with disgust, gainfully ignoring him in lieu of planning the best means of gathering materials from the corpse. Maikhel sighed softly as he considered the creature all over again, hard-pressed to exult over the possible leathers and claws and other sundry items they could wear and wave around so boastfully.

The dragon was only … dead.

Vivienne frowned at him, moving close enough to brush his shoulder where some of the dragon's blood was slowly drying. Her murmured wondering was low enough, then, "You're troubled, my dear. I can't imagine why. So few can claim to have killed even one dragon, mind you."

Maikhel smiled thinly as he regarded her, "That only inspires people to find new and bigger dragons for me to kill, actually." Vivienne laughed lightly, so that the low light reflecting off the steamy water nearby made her dark skin glisten with moisture. Glistened, mind you. Because a polished lady never did something so mundane as sweat, Vivienne told him once. Now she bent her head, letting her laughter trail away before she reached out to brush back the dark tangle of his hair which tumbled over his brow just then.

"Is that what bothers you at the moment? That the Orlesians asked us to slog through this marsh and bog to battle this beast here in the muck?" Vivienne did echo part of Maikhel's concern. Because there really was no reason for this fight. Regardless of the ever-skittish Orlesian fighters that dotted the Plains nearby, the dragon was tucked up in a bog rife with gurguts enough she didn't _need_ to fly so far looking for hunting grounds.

But Maikhel only sighed softly, "She wasn't angry. Most of the dragons we've fought, Vivienne … they were raging, maddened things. Little more than beasts, animals with no single purchase aside from killing whatever soul happened to cross them." Maikhel lifted one of his slender hands, gesturing slowly towards the huge dragon lying in a spill of purple scales across the hard, cragged rocks, "But not her. She was afraid, frantic even. It beat at her, like her heart was beating inside her chest. Like she knew us, even."

Vivienne's lips pursed tight into a thick line against the bottom of her face as she regarded him. That the Inquisitor's magic was very much about the feelings he sensed in those around him, that he could almost _see_ a person's emotions in the merest moments of meeting them, was hardly well-known and something the Inquisition's leaders kept closely guarded a secret. If only because it provided a unique advantage in terms of diplomacy, negotiation, and judgements.

Maikhel tried describing it to her only once, that it was different from person to person – sometimes colors that shined from them, almost glowing, sometimes that he himself felt as they did, and sometimes like a tinkle of sound, a chiming thing he was able to hear and listen to.

But he always understood who was trustworthy, who was not, who was worth drawing close to and who was good only for avoiding. Vivienne explained to Leliana when the spymaster asked her about the potential, telling her, "If Maikhel Lavellan killed a man, I would adamantly cheer him for the action. Because that would be a man likely so dangerous we'd _all_ suffer for him to live. Maikhel's judgement is a thing of beauty."

Now she wondered aloud, "I never imagined a dragon even had something like feelings."

Maikhel shrugged, "Most any animal has simple feelings, Vivienne. But this? No, this was no mere _feeling_. This dragon was something very much different. It was more … an awareness, maybe even understanding." Maikhel tugged lightly on the tip of his ear again, "She was a thinking creature, Vivienne." Vivienne didn't exactly squirm with discomfiture just then. But her back was ramrod straight as she turned her head to regard the dead dragon with the same troubled expression that colored Maikhel's features. But Maikhel finally glanced down at his staff, reaching to tuck the long length of gleaming wood into the harness against his back.

He pointed towards the long wall of stone that ringed the steaming grotto, "I think that's prophet's laurel over there. The herbs are quite rare enough, they're worth grabbing up." Maikhel's fascination with plants and growing things was as well-known as his magic was secretive and mysterious.

Skyhold's people and soldiers made it a habit in the earliest days of the Inquisition, even before Maikhel earned the title Inquisitor, of gathering small plants for him. In pots, no less. His quarters in Skyhold were packed with potted plants in every single corner, along shelves and all along the outside balcony edge, and he tended the things the way most people tended pets they adored. He even _talked_ to the things!

Cullen clicked his tongue over the ready habit of his soldiers when he finally realized what they were doing, "They keep bringing him _flowers_. I thought they were mocking him at first. As if an elf only dances naked through fields of clover, like some child's tale perhaps." He told Vivienne then, smiling, "But it's more a game to them, really. He always seems to recognize the most mundane green things. And what it might be used for, to boot. The potions he makes are extraordinary!"

For now, letting Maikhel wander around the brief area looking for new plants and weeds was hardly worrisome, at least. And Vivienne decided he needed the peace that might be won from the routine motions of picking flowers and leaves. She didn't even watch him move away, only turned back to help Iron Bull and Cassandra as they planned the butchering of the dragon with methodical precision.

Maikhel pattered along the pitted stones, following the line of laurel that snaked in and around the various nooks and crannies of the rock wall. Steam rose all around him, brightening along his skin with warm moisture that dripped down over his face so he could lick up the droplets. He could almost feel the dirt and grime from the fight slowly sloughing off his exposed skin, until he was tempted to bare his entire body and let the pain and stress of the entire fight just … drop off from him.

But he only moved along, slowly picking at the vines of prophet's laurel. He gathered handfuls of the herbs, thinking of the various medicinals he could make using the leaves, the stems that he could blanch over a heat source. Even some teas, that maybe Solas might enjoy. A game all its own, finding a tea that Solas would like to drink. And Maikhel smiled softly as he considered what herbs he might use to bring a smile of delight to his own hahren. He was so occupied with imagining, that he very nearly missed seeing the crevice.

Except there was a line of laurel that lead into the narrow confines of rock set into the wall, and Maikhel stopped abruptly to consider it.

It was the most brief passage, from what he could discern. He turned his head, looking back towards his companions standing against the far side of the grotto just then. The dragon's body actually stretched the entire length of the opening into the space, almost end to end, and Maikhel grimaced as he watched Iron Bull yank roughly against the dragon's wing, pulling it out from underneath the huge body so he might judge the incredible breadth of leathered appendage.

Maikhel wasn't interested in the dragon's parts just then, so he turned back to the brief opening into the rock wall.

He turned sideways to edge past the line of stones and sharp corners, trying to slide along the way without disturbing the rocks on either side. Even his own slender body was too big, though, and some dust drifted down to settle in a gray line along the top of his head. Maikhel felt his nose twitch with an impending sneeze, and he fought back against the looming chance. Until his entire nose felt like it was on fire. He blinked furiously, trying to catch the sneeze before it forced him to bend over sideways and bang his head against the side of the rocks and stones on either side of him.

But _that_ was the struggle which forced him into position enough he could finally see the thing the amazing, beautiful, and incredible dragon they'd just finished killing was fighting so hard to defend from them.


	2. Chapter 2 -- Up the Road to the Sky

The sunlight glimmered against the stones of the sprawling hold walls, making a veritable sheen of golden shimmer that splashed up and over the hard, rough edges of the walls. Right before spilling down over onto and across the green and gold of the ground just behind the hold. Cullen thought it looked like more of a stream or river of gold, brightening Skyhold until it looked like the seat of the sun itself, even. Or like the sun was actually pressing the sweetest kiss to the ground, as if sharing warmth enough for the planting the Inquisitor wanted there.

The very breath of the Maker himself, Cullen thought. Right there for all of them to see. Cullen waved towards the slender figure of Elan Ve'mal, smiling slightly as she stayed kneeling down alongside one the dark brown furrows of tilled soil that dotted the narrow fields they'd prepared so close to Skyhold's walls. She was carefully examining and moving the dirt through her slim, gloved fingers, and periodically directing the routines of several farmers nearby with pointed gestures and waves of her hands, too.

Cullen eyed them all, trying to judge their work and respect of Elan especially. Simple farmers rarely regarded elves very well; but the Inquisition's leader was an elf. Josephine was insistent, that everyone serving the Inquisition would refrain from slandering anyone at Skyhold for the shape of their ears, "Above all else, we must hold true to the honor and respect of our Inquisitor."

Elan's face right then was shining quite as bright and golden as the sunlight against the walls, as if the sun was reaching out to touch her in particular. Cullen suddenly remembered the legends that spoke of Elves visiting these summits to share their magics, their rituals. Maybe their magic lingered, here. Skyhold often felt like that, almost heady and real with promise and hope. As if there was _something_ \- in the stones, in the air, in every, single thing that grew here.

Although the arable land so high above the countryside was monumentally brief, too. Which to Cullen's mind only increased its true value, mind you. Reducing Skyhold's dependency on foodstuffs from either Fereldan or Orlais was of tremendous priority, kept them from begging the countries nearby for the many grains they so needed to feed the Inquisition's army.

And of course it was Maikhel who pondered the chance of cutting lines of farmable land against the walls where the sun shined the longest, "There are hardy plants that would benefit from even that much brief warmth. If we plant spelt in late spring, we could bring in a fairly decent grain crop by fall, before the snows become over-fierce." Cullen was always stunned by the sheer knowledge that lay in the Inquisitor's mind, how quickly and widely his thoughts moved. Plants were of particular interest to him, and the farmers among the refugees marveled at his perceptiveness.

But he also seemed keenly knowledgeable about animals, especially horses and other riding beasts. It wasn't even unusual for Cullen to find Maikhel in the stables, watching over and caring for the horses and harts that composed Skyhold's herds. Master Dennet enjoyed their conversations, even: "I'd keep calling the Inquisition a halla-rider – cause he can surely ride them, can ride _anything_ , I'd go thinking – but he knows his horses just as much as he does those beasts, too."

Cullen shifted back and forth, so that the chestplate covering his front eased better along his torso. So it stopped pinching against the curve of his underarm, mostly, but also to settle the sense of discomfort that came from remembering _why_ Maikhel would be so much familiar with horses than most other Dalish elves.

Not many people knew about the friend and clansman Maikhel lost when the Conclave was destroyed; Cullen knew only because Leliana admitted she'd observed the pair of elves as they approached the Temple. Dalish elves were an unusual enough sight, that she'd stopped to observe them, "Apparently even the Dalish avoid sending their mages without a blade to defend them. The other elf was a fighter of some sort, carrying a sword and shield. They were … close friends, I believe. If their banter is anything to judge such things by, at least."

Cullen often wondered what it must have been like for Maikhel - to go back there, to see those lumps of burned flesh and bodies lying in heaps around what was left of the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Wondering all the while which one was his own clansman, his friend … his lover perhaps; or was the elf only burned away into nothing, even worse. Maikhel certainly didn't speak of him, not as a rule or towards those humans and others that gathered together in the Inquisition.

But he did tell Cullen the story one time, shortly after the Inquisition claimed Skyhold and Maikhel was suddenly being hailed as its leader.

The elf had retreated at one point into a lonely corner of the Herald's Rest, out of earshot of many of the tavern's patrons. But Cabot pointed Cullen towards the Inquisitor's table, before Maikhel's head could plop down onto the narrow wood surface from utter, exhausted inebriety, so that Cullen saved him from a hard knock to the forehead when he caught Maikhel's head. Then he set himself into a chair alongside the drunken Inquisitor.

They sat there together over several long moments, while the Inquisitor babbled drunkenly and murmured to him quietly, "If I couldn't save Dain'yel, how am I going to save the rest of these people, Cullen?"

"The way you did at Haven, Maikhel. Without hesitating, and with all of us standing alongside you. You are not alone in this fight," Cullen told him, leaning close enough to stare into the elf's lavender-hued eyes so swollen with fear and doubt.

It reminded him of that moment in the Chantry's doorway, with Roderick grunting from pain at their feet and the spirit insisting Corypheus only wanted the Herald of Andraste. "Only him, none of you. The rest of you are nothing," Cole said. And Maikhel only looked down, suddenly afraid, with his eyes glimmering through doubt and anxiety.

Not that he might die, or that Corypheus could destroy _him_. But that he would fail so many of Haven's people, rather. That his own life wouldn't be enough to save them. Cullen had never met a man more willing to shed every single drop of blood in his own body, if only he might save one more life.

Even Hawke sheltered his own before others, put them firstly before he ever considered Kirkwall. The city might have burned to the ground, so long as Hawke saved Carver and that elf, Fenris, and Cullen always knew so much. Cullen didn't even blame him for it. Hawke was a _good_ man, gave of himself more than most men were ever even asked in their entire lifetimes. Cullen was glad he could say he joined him. Later than he should've, but he was honored to say they had fought side by side in the end.

But Maikhel Lavellan? He stepped out those Chantry doors utterly certain he was going to die, and he didn't once complain or cry against it. No, he faced down the horrible visage of Thedas' long-dead nemesis, one of those who had destroyed them all by Blight and fear and the ravages of darkspawn; and he did it all alone, his slender frame unshakable and unbowed. He lifted up that young face, held his head high and straight and called out loudly enough his voice echoed up the hillside, "I'm not afraid of you!" While Corypheus mocked him, laughed, Cullen knew that Maikhel spoke the truth in that moment, too.

Maikhel wasn't afraid of dying, he'd _never_ been afraid to die. He was only afraid of running out of time, strength, and blood enough, that the rest of them did not escape. That truth still made Cullen stiffen with prideful determination, to give him _back_ that much honor.

So when Maikhel looked over at him there in the tavern, leaning drunkenly against the table and muttering so low that no one else was able to hear how much it hurt him that he lost his friend to the explosion at the Conclave – Cullen didn't even hesitate. He vowed to him, "Never again, Maikhel. You will never be on your own again, not in front of him like that."

It's why Cullen snorted straight into Mother Gisselle's face when she muttered to him her concerns over Maikhel's fascination with the Tevinter mage. And it didn't matter how much the Mother was worried Dorian would "lead the Inquisitor astray", Cullen said to her. "If anyone deserves some comfort through this mess, it's the Inquisitor." Maikhel couldn't be alone; he needed companionship and love and care more than just about any of them. He had stood over a sad, burned heap that was once friend enough to follow him to the Conclave – a friend and a warrior, who taught him about horses and showed him the care of animals. Corypheus took that damned much from Maikhel when he ripped through the Veil, and if Dorian could give him peace past that loss … well then, Cullen was pleased enough for him.

But then Dorian proved himself a friend, as well. To all of them. Cullen thought Dorian was a teasing mix of enjoyable interlude and fascinating wellspring of information; he was sharply smart, dapper, and his wit actually rivaled the Inquisitor's. The pair was well-matched, and Cullen enjoyed watching them together.

All that, and Dorian managed to give them incredible pertinent and valuable insights involving the Imperium, as well. Even hunted down dangerous magisters using the chaos to further their own aims here in the South, shielding the Inquisitor's back and cheering every Inquisition victory. No, Cullen liked Dorian quite enough, if not as much as Maikhel did.

Elan approached Cullen abruptly, her chin held up as she stepped certainly and Cullen lifted his chin in a gesture of welcome to her. She briskly dusted her gloved hands down over the apron that covered her front, smiling up at Cullen as she stopped in front of him, "Thank you, commander. Whatever you said to them, the soldiers weren't anywhere near the fields this morning. The potatoes are grateful, trust me."

Cullen's mouth twisted as he fought back a grin, "I'm glad to hear that. It might help them avoid further discomfort from additional exercises in the _proper_ areas for training, over this next fortnight. Their gratitude may equal that of the potatoes, even."

Elan actually giggled suddenly. It pleased Cullen, to see her at ease enough that she laughed standing in front of the Inquisition's general. Those first days Elan approached the Inquisition after the College of Herbalists directed her to them, she kept her head tilted downward and apologized after every word that passed her lips, it seemed like. Watching her grow into her own confidence was another boon he could lay at the Inquisitor's feet, Cullen thought. Even if Maikhel would only look at him bemusedly if he told him that much.

But Elan only shrugged, smiling, "Well, on behalf of Skyhold's budding potatoes, saved from being trampled by stomping boots and swinging swords … thank you." Cullen lifted his hand into the center of his chest, bowing low with dramatic aplomb as Elan giggled all over again. He was still smiling when they both heard the first calls coming from the walls, "The Inquisitor! The Inquisitor is on the road!"

Cullen lowered his head, already turning away from Elan, "Please let me know if the potatoes require anymore direct intervention, my lady." He finally broke into a grin as he climbed the steps, loosing his sense of humor now that no one was watching. Besides, there was no sense of clamoring alarm in the guards' calls from the walls and Cullen felt relaxed as he ducked back through the doorway leading into the interior of the hold.

Had there been some serious injury during the Inquisitor's foray off the mountain passes into the Exalted Plains, they would have rushed back to Skyhold. And the guards would have shouted for the Hold's preparedness, for healers to attend the gates and soldiers to meet the oncoming riders. But the Inquisitor's return was easy and simple today, and Skyhold only continued its business as he approached.

Cullen met Solas as he approached the top of the steps leading into the main hall, and he nodded at the elven mage slowly. Solas forever seemed to inspire respect and courtesy, as if the wisdom of age and experience simply clung to his every line and angle, every turn of his head and chin. Not that he _appeared_ over-ancient, either. But even the Inquisitor seemed to defer to Solas' sense and knowledge, most often, and the others of the Inquisition tended to fall into the same tendency.

Now Solas inclined his head in that peculiar fashion of his which only seemed so much wizened and smoothly cadenced, "Commander. It seems yet another trophy will adorn the Hold's main hall." Cullen lifted his chin only slightly, sliding his gaze towards the dragon horns and skulls mounted into place so strategically by Josephine and Vivienne, both of whom were determined to – as they put it – "properly awe visitors to Skyhold with immediate evidence of the Inquisition's strength and power".

Cullen frowned in reply, "You disapprove, then? The Inquisitor was asked to respond to the motions of a dragon in that section of the Exalted Plains, after all. Apparently, it was coming too close to some of Celene's lines. I believe the Inquisitor was hoping to soothe some of the more regular Orlesian suspicion in regards his role in the region."

Solas lifted his hand quickly, shaking his head, "You misunderstand me, commander. I would not disparage the politic motions of the Inquisition in such simple maneuvers. I simply wonder at the continued practice of sending the only one of us capable of successfully contending with Corypheus up against the snapping maws of whatever dragon happens across his path, however."

Cullen blinked at him as it finally occurred to him, that he long since stopped thinking of Maikhel Lavellan as even remotely vulnerable. When did that happen? When did Maikhel slip into becoming, at least in Cullen's mind, something indestructible and abiding? Something no longer really … _mortal_?

Like he wasn't a person anymore. Just some god-like creature, maybe.

Solas' eyes narrowed tellingly then. The elf leaned forward, intent on Cullen suddenly, "I don't believe _he_ would be gratified to know you disregard his sheer mortality, commander. Our young Inquisitor has been very adamant to avoid undue worship and adulation, even as he accepted the role of leadership we've all thrust on him."

"Yes, he has," Cullen easily agreed. Maikhel very regularly waved his hand to dismiss the common assumption he was some sort of divine gift from the Maker himself, snapping his violet-hued eyes into narrow slits as he argued with all of them, "I'm no thing to be raised up and deified, damn me." Now Cullen squirmed as he realized how subtly he had fallen into the same habit as his more zealous soldiers and other followers of the Inquisition: "It's always impressed me, mind you. You would think someone so young would rather enjoy such … recognition. There's power in it, at the very least."

Solas' gaze flickered and he looked away, off towards the far doors on the other side of the hall that lead out into Skyhold's courtyard. Not for the first time, Cullen wondered what shadows lurked behind the mage's studied eyes. But Solas only murmured, "Indeed. He would hardly be the first leader elevated so high, who lauded his own self and exulted in the pleasure of mighty position." Solas looked back at Cullen then, his chin upheld and firm, "But it is a burden, too. Those held up so much in our esteem aren't _permitted_ to fail. Not. Ever."

Cullen hard the rising shouts from the courtyard then, as the Inquisitor's party rode through the gates. He rolled his shoulders backwards, settling his thick mantle into place as he looked down the long hall towards the doors, "Which is why we'll support him in the small things he clings to, to maintain his identity. As his friends and companions, rather than servants and sycophants." Cullen stepped away, just before stopping and glancing back at Solas with his eyebrow slanted upwards, "Speaking of the mundane … Maikhel wanted a greenhouse set against the wall outside the chantry garden. More herbs, he said. For the kitchens, rather than the stillery. I forgot to mention it to Elan."

Solas smiled thinly as he watched the human moving away down the center of the hall then, his golden-haired head canted downwards in apparent thought even as he moved. The mundane would save Maikhel before the thing was done, Solas thought. And then his own head dropped down in thought, too. When did the word da'len become something so real and true to him, then?

Cullen emerged out of the doors and blinked in the bright light of the midmorning sun shining down into the courtyard. Which is the only reason he very nearly crashed into the backsides of two more finely dressed nobles standing there on the rise of the stairs overlooking the yard below. At first glance he assumed they were Orlesians, all bundled into thick coats as they stood there stiffly proper.

Until the man muttered to his female companion in a high-pitched Tevinter accent, "That's the Inquisitor? _That_ little elf is the vaunted Inquisition's oh powerful ruler? Bah!" Cullen pressed his lips tight together, as he considered the fine line he only just considered along with Solas. Fighting back the temptation to tell stories of what strength and power trembled through the young, slender form of elven Inquisitor.

The razor-sharp wit behind those pretty eyes, maybe; the whipping slashes of his judgement whenever he was called upon to use it. The fire that flew from his oh so willowy fingers; the great gouts of flame and scarlet destruction that razed into the air over his sylphlike head and gently pointed ears. Or the keen perception that he twisted against his friends and enemies alike; until you only knew nothing was really hidden from that lavender gaze of his.

Maikhel was real, though. He wasn't a god, didn't want to be made into _anyone's_ god. So Cullen stopped his own ready leap to impress the nobles. He just lingered long enough to wave down at the milling soldiers who'd returned with the Inquisitor, and he murmured, "Inquisitor Lavellan's defeated another dragon, actually. Perhaps he was too small, and the beast couldn't find him in time enough. Not down there under its immense claws, at least."

The dark-haired Tevinter woman glanced back at the Commander with her eyebrow raised up, "Another dragon? I've heard the stories, at least. This would be … what is it, Trevis? _Three_ dragons that the Inquisitor has battled, yes?"

Cullen shook his head, only subtly eyeing the sniffing disdain from Trevis as he stood there looking down at the Inquisitor. Maikhel was only just twisting in his saddle, reaching up to lift his helmet off his head. His black hair was spiked up against the top of his head but shorn finely enough that his pointed ears were obvious even from where the small crowd of onlookers was gathered.

Cullen actually made a mental note to ask Josephine who the bantering aristocrats really were, since Tevinters remained rare visitors to Skyhold. And Tevinter aristocrats were even more rare, although typically mages of some kind. Cullen was grateful to Dorian, that he understood the distinction between the various social classes in the Imperium.

These two were likely Laetans of some kind, mages born into families that hadn't shown magical ability until more recent. Such low-class mages would be more likely sent abroad to see and understand the growing authority of the Inquisition, rather than any member of the more vaunted Altus. Those descended from the dreamers, the ones who spoke to the Old Gods, Dorian told him. Like Dorian himself. Although Dorian shrugged at him laughingly, too, "I myself am a veritable pariah among my fine brethren. Have no doubt of that, mind you."

And really. Where was Dorian, now that Cullen was thinking on him. He frowned as he scanned the yard looking for the mage, muttering aside to the two Tevinters, "Five. This will be _five_ dragons the Inquisitor has defeated." They both turned to gape at him, and Cullen's lip twisted up slightly at the very corner as he turned to the stairs and prepared to step down. He quipped, "We're running out of room to showcase his prizes."

Cullen moved down the stairs quickly, gamely ignoring the sputtering gasps from the Tevinters as he went to greet the Inquisitor. But Maikhel just vaguely waved towards him before directing one of the soldiers to care for his horse. Cullen frowned with confusion, since Maikhel typically spent the first hour of his return to Skyhold carefully tending to his mount.

This particular horse happened to be one of his favorites, even. A Dalish-bred animal that was gifted to them shortly after they first arrived at Skyhold, when Haven still burned so brightly behind them. The animal was mostly black with a white underside and chest, and Maikhel seemed to love the beast. He named her even, "She's Enasal, my own joy out of loss." So it befuddled Cullen when Maikhel rushed away from his horse, moving towards the side doors that lead through the kitchens into Skyhold's interior.

But then a single voice rose up over the wild din of men and horses: "Are you going to stop long enough to tell me what you were thinking? You weren't thinking, I just know it! That's the only reason you did something so idiotic, only _after_ I was on the way back to Skyhold!"

Cullen sighed, turning to gesture at the soldiers standing there frozen in place. He admonished them to move on, care for the horses, and to retrieve the materials and articles the Inquisition had managed to obtain during the Inquisitor's foray to the Plains. Anything to get their attention off the Inquisitor being scolded by his lover in the middle of the open courtyard.

Maikhel didn't seem over-bothered, though. He even smiled softly as he stood there, while Dorian brushed his hands up and down the elf's shoulders and chest, looking for any sign of injury or bruise even.

But then he held up the large bundle he was clutching against abdomen, and Cullen frowned again as he leaned closer to try and ascertain what the Inquisitor had brought back with him. Another dragon bone, perhaps. Maybe Dagna could use it to create some incredible staff ... Only it wasn't a knuckle torn from the dragon's claws. Something mundane as that? Hardly!

Dorian looked down as Maikhel eased back the cloak he'd covered his prize with, and Cullen marveled at yet another feat the Inquisitor had managed. To leave Dorian Pavus speechless from wonderment. At least for a moment.

Then the Tevinter turned his narrowed gray gaze back to his lover, "An egg? You kept the dragon's egg? Maker take me, Maikhel! Do you even know what baby dragons _eat_? Keep it away from your ears!"


	3. Chapter 3 -- Coming Closer

Solas felt her coming closer, until she only hovered in the doorway. As if she were a chiming bell through the tendrils of the Fade where he was exploring. She seemed, to him, like water when it was trickling. Like the sounds a stream made as it gathered momentum atop a mountain's edge. The ice to Maikhel's fire.

She really was just so much different than her brother. Maikhel blazed through Solas' awareness whenever he was dreaming. As if he was a fiery creature that skirted the edges of Solas' own consciousness every time, and never mind that Maikhel didn't realize it. To Maikhel, the Fade really was little more than dreams, just strange shapes and sounds – something not even _real_.

But then. If Maikhel himself so slowly took shape in Solas' perceptions, if _he_ was becoming real to him … Then was it possible for Maikhel to see and know the Fade better, too?

Solas had marveled over Maikhel's nature since they first asked him to seek him out, to examine him; when he lay there on the cot where they tumbled his slight, beaten form after the Conclave exploded. Oh, Maikhel was intense and extraordinarily unique even then, even before Solas considered the sparkling twist of magic rippling over and through the palm of his hand. That he was actually _alive_ there was surprising, that the magic didn't consume him.

But then the humans didn't destroy him, either. Bruised him, battered him and that was purely obvious when Solas was finally lead into the room where Maikhel lay unconscious and unaware. He twisted and turned from the pain and shock of contact with the orb. Mottled bruises along his torso marked where soldiers likely kicked and struck against him and his lip was swollen and bloodied, too.

He moaned from the shooting pains of a single broken rib, even, only blearily opening his pale purplish eyes just long enough to regard Solas, whispering to him in Dalish-accented elven, " _Ma halani_." He didn't remember that moment, and Solas didn't really remind him of it. It was pain, only the most horrible pain that Maikhel was actually aware of right then, and nothing of Solas.

Memories of pain were easily swept aside so that the mind might continue to work. Even when the pain persisted, when it bit and burned in your skin. Even when it was still real a thing, and Solas _knew_ Maikhel continued to endure the pain whenever he was nearby a Rift. It slowly marked his awareness of the Fade, too, until Maikhel worried and feared its nearness. Solas sorrowed over that loss; that Maihel was growing to be a Mage who saw the Fade as a threat or a burden was something he would have saved him from, if he could.

But there in Haven Solas had only studied him, considered him and the way the magic worked in him and through him. He could see it wreaking havoc on the elf's slender frame, pondered the chance Maikhel would survive and knew it would kill him eventually.

But why didn't it take him from the first?  
Why was he able to seize it, hold it so long a time; why didn't it simply destroy him outright?  
Maybe that he was elven … maybe it was only so much as that.

Except the Dalish hadn't impressed him as over-capable; and never mind their naïve eagerness. They were still little more than small children, bumbling along and utterly ruining whatever it was they claimed to be seeking. So what was it about _this_ particular Dalish, that he grasped onto magic not meant for him?

Only to have it accept him?

That's why Solas watched Maikhel, kept watching him in the weeks after he woke again. Solas studied him, listened to him. And then he liked him. Maikhel was young, hugely bright and indelibly curious. He was like a sparking creation; like the first tiny flame given breath over one of the circles they made at the camps where they huddled together through the long nights of hunting down rifts and demons. What would he become when he finally _blazed_ , Solas wondered.

Now Solas opened his eyes slowly, to greet Falon Lavellan as she pattered up to the edge of the door leading into Skyhold's rotunda. He raised himself up from the reclining pose he had sunk into when tiredness finally overwhelmed him the night before, when the candles no longer helped him to discern the colors of the paints he was working with anymore and sleep beckoned.

Falon studied him, her dark head canted sideways as she considered him while he stretched awake. She murmured, because even slight sounds echoed through the rotunda, "You've got a splotch of dark blue paint right there on your chin, you know. For a second, I wondered if some spirit clocked you violently while you dreamed." Her tone was warm with amusement, and Solas glanced at her when he realized how much she sounded like her brother suddenly. Humor laced many of the observations Maikhel made, too.

He smiled towards her, "Would you have chased down the dastardly spirit, if that was what happened?" Not that Solas truly doubted Falin's bravery, either. The young woman had asserted herself and her magic between Wycombe's forces and the children in her charge, moving them all away from the terror those attacks brought upon their clan. Running, running. Until she came upon Inquisition troops, and declared her own self to them, boldly telling them as she stood there proudly straight, "We're the last of our clan. Me and the little ones. We need my brother … _Need_ him."

Solas remembered the bruised look in her eyes when Cullen carried her through Skyhold's gates, the way she clutched against the pommel of his saddle as she huddled in the circle of his arms and looked around the yard. Even Maikhel retreated from that grief, wandering to the gardens and the fields around Skyhold most days, silent and quiet and trailed only by Dorian and only sometimes. Solas knew he cried out there, giving his tears up to the plants and flowers he enjoyed so much. Days flowed into more days, and they worked even harder.

They were sitting side by side around a camp's fire in the Western Approach one night, when Maikhel leaned his head back to breathe in deeply, and he sighed, "The air's so hot here. Even now, when it's dark and quiet. It's like this blanket pressing down on my head, until it's hard to breathe and I'm drowning in it." Solas turned his head to regard him, but he stayed silent, waiting. So Maikhel leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his knees.

And he whispered brokenly, sounding guilt-ridden and heavy, "I miss them all, Solas. I miss Keeper Deshanna. I even miss my father! But I knew I'd never go back to them, at the same time. I knew it when I left them, to head for the Conclave. I was going to ask Dain'yel to return, because I would never love him like he did me." Maikhel's eyes filled with tears, "How terrible is it, that he died following me when I _knew_ I'd never give him that much of me? What does it make me, that as much as I'm sorry he's gone, that my clan's gone, I'm just grateful Falon is safe and with me now?"

Maikhel inhaled raggedly, "Ah, Solas. I wanted to tell Cullen what it means, that he carried me down from the Temple. And then he carried my sister, too; so that they didn't hurt her and I just wanted to run up and hug him for the gift of her. But I keep thinking how wrong it is, to feel anything like _glad_ when I should be sorrowful." But Solas huffed, turned to look up at the stars overhead, the violet-hued darkness of the sky that seemed weighted with heat right then. Like Maikhel's eyes. Murk-ridden eyes, that questioned the worth of his own life when so many who counted on him once were now shattered and gone.

"No." Solas remembered the quiet, sad look on Maikhel's face when Wisdom disappeared back into the Fade's ether. His friend disappeared forever. And then Maikhel? To lose so much … And over and over again. Solas fought back the bitterness rising in his stomach, and the anger. It had no place just then. "Maikhel, there is no _proper_ feeling over such things. Only feelings. And if it helps, _I_ am glad for your sister's safety, as well."

Safe. Falon leaned back on the heels of her boots as Solas turned from his memories to regard her again, standing there in the entranceway of Skyhold's rotunda. She slowly padded inside the room, stopping alongside Solas' worktable before she tapped her small foot against the floor. She was safe. Safe and well and her eyes shined brightly with amusement at him; so much like her brother just then that Solas really did want to hug her.

Falon chuckled softly, trying to keep from bothering the mages in the library above them. The ones she swore to him only just the other day, that she was sure never, ever really slept. Because they were _always_ up there. Probably doing human-magey stuff, she joked. Falon shrugged and brazenly told him, "Oh, no. Not me. I leave invasions of the Fade to my so-many-minutes-older brother. Although he did _trip_ his way back out the last time, right?" She tittered, "So much unlike Maikhel, mind you. He's _never_ proved clumsy in his entire life. That's what they really mean when they say he's Andraste's Chosen, mind you. He didn't trip …" Falon leaned in to whisper dramatically loud, "She pushed him out!"

Solas wasn't able to stop himself. His head dropped backwards as he laughed loudly up towards the roof of the rotunda, sending echoes of his guffawing amusement dancing along the walls.

Falon actually preened, satisfied as she watched the very uncharacteristic show of humor from the elf even her brother called _hahren_. She had decided everyone around her thought so much highly of Solas, that they forgot he needed to lose the propriety and business-hard stiffness as much as any of them did. Varric had bemoaned to her just the other day, "Tried convincing Chuckles to join us over a game of Wicked Grace. Shit, even the Quiz played along … Oh, and between you and me, Wicked Grace isn't Quiz's game. Tell him to stick to chess."

Solas' laughter trailed off slowly then, as if it were so rare he wanted to ensure he loosed every bit of it. But eventually he eased into mere smiling regard again, and only stood there studiously looking at her.

Falon crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes still shining up at him as she waited. She was wearing human garb, a pretty dress made from finely woven lambswool likely imported from the Hinterlands and dyed a rich indigo that actually matched her eyes. The ring of blue-purple which circled the irises of her eyes was brightly brilliant, rich enough to be called velvety, and made even more vivid by the darkness of black tresses that framed her face.

Maikhel told him during the return journey to Skyhold this past week, his mouth twisted up at the corner with derisive disgust as he fidgeted in his saddle, "My father was eager enough for Falon to marry. The most attention he ever really paid her, I think, and it was designed to foist her far away from him. The few that agreed to visit from nearby clans only insulted her purple, purple eyes, though." Solas thought he should have asked Maikhel why it was only a few Dalish men that tried courting the younger Falon Lavellan. Or maybe he would only make it a point to mention to Josephine, that interest in the Inquisitor's twin sister would likely prove intense in the days to come. Elf or not, even truly purple eyes would prove little deterrent to men from various countries and locales trying to secure alliances with the Inquisition through such a marriage.

Solas suddenly imagined the Iron Bull acting as Falon's bodyguard and chaperone from _anyone_ who tried insulting her eye color, and very nearly burst out into renewed laughter. But he only queried her, "Was there something offending you, then? Other than the paint dried on my chin, mind you."

Falon nodded slightly, her eyes darting sideways before she dropped her voice low again. _The mages overhead_ , Solas remembered. But then Falon softly admitted to him, "I'm worried about Maikhel. I'm surprised you're not, even. Surely you've _noticed_."

Solas straightened, curving his arms around to his backside before clasping his fingers together. He looked like some wise Keeper of the clans suddenly, and never mind the lack of vallaslin on his face. To Falon right then Solas was a teacher and a guide. As Deshanna had been. But the Keeper was gone, taken from her as she did what Deshanna last requested and stole the children from the reach of the Venatori humans.

Falon only wanted _someone_ to tell her, to show her what to do. Maikhel called Solas _hahren_ , so Solas was the one she looked for finally. Now Solas was frowning at her, murmuring with as much quiet care as Falon's own tone, "His grief is normal and expected, however. If we were to interfere in its natural progress …" Falon snorted, waving her fingers impatiently.

"If it was grief, there wouldn't be any reason for me to seek you out, _hahren_. I grieve, as he does. Both of us could have done … something …" Falon looked away, blinking rapidly. Solas frowned as he realized he had forgotten _her_ loss during the midst of their own banter. He wasn't sure what she had seen of her clan's destruction, before making her escape with the children.

But Falon tapped her small, booted foot against the stone floor suddenly, and turned back to him again, "He's actually agitated, almost shaking with it. It's been bothering him for days now, so that he simply _can't_ stay still. He's even avoiding his leafy friends, and thinks I don't notice that he's worried about ripping off their pretty little stems or something. And just now he invaded the kitchens. Again."

"Again?" Solas blinked. The course of the conversation was boggling, actually. He wasn't certain what was truly bothering him more. That he had paid little enough attention to the Inquisitor he failed to observe anything of such strange behavior. Or that he didn't truly comprehend what Falon was even referring to. "Why would Maikhel be in the kitchens at all? I was under the impression Josephine required him to address a rather staid group of dignitaries visiting from Nevarra." Maikhel had been pressed to respond to any number of questions and issues these past days, practically locked in the war room to mull over the maps alongside his advisors as they all prepared for the assault on Adamant.

"That's what I mean! He keeps saying he's hungry. Too hungry to wait for a meal to be brought. He's pacing back and forth in there while they prepare him something with meat, the way he's wanting." Falon frowned, "Maikhel has _never_ been so insistent, for one thing. But for meat especially. It's … peculiar."

Solas' eyebrows scrunched tightly along his forehead. He actually stepped backwards from Falon as his thoughts swirled madly, running along the paths of memory and times long past. But Maikhel … A strange, desperate hunger. Signs of unusual agitation. And a dragon's egg, all tucked up in a heated nesting box nearby the forge in the Undercroft where it might stay warmest in a wide, open space.

 _Old_ magic.  
And even then it was exceedingly rare.  
Only a few elves ever claimed it, and only one of _them_ still lived.  
That he knew of, actually.

Solas' gaze sharpened suddenly, narrowing on Falon like a razor-sharp arrow that flew across the space to catch her. She froze under his regard, sensing the sudden, incredible severity of his focus right then. His voice became this hard, cold thing … Like abrupt shards of ice he tossed down onto the floor there between them. But his emotions were hidden from her, walls flying up between them as he demanded, "Why were the men who came to court you among the Dalish cruel? _Why_ did they taunt you?"

Falon's mouth dropped open as she stared at him blankly, suddenly confused. Then her entire frame flushed crimson with pained embarrassment. She swallowed, felt a lump in her throat and tried to push it back as her thoughts floundered, bounced around in her head like marbles dropping over the floor. She yanked her bottom lip between her teeth to still its quaver, "What do you know of _that_?"

"Falon, do not. Please." Solas chopped the air with one of his hands straightly, "There is no time. Only tell me. Why would the Dalish deride you?"

Falon drew in a long breath, wrapping her slender arms around her torso as if hugging her own self protectively, "But it's not even important!" Solas suffered a dim, distant sense of remorse that she was distressed. He imagined the satisfaction that could be had, seeking out whatever dull-hearted Dalish elf it was who had sent barbs enough at her to leave her nearly shaking in front of him these years later, and slowly shredding the man to pieces.

But he was honest when he told her they had to move quickly. The Orlesian researcher Maikhel discovered in the Western Approach had been monitoring the incubating egg closely, the opportunity for "scientific examination and research" so compelling the man barely slept. He really had set himself down there, situating his sleeping place nearby the alcove where they set the nest and responding to every single shift of the egg against the straw and furs piled around it.

Frederick was practically humming with sheerest pleasure only days earlier; announcing over the table where they had all gathered for the day's midday meal, "I do believe our resident dragon will soon be making an appearance. The egg has taken to rocking in place, albeit intermittently." They all stopped to look at him, the table falling silent for a long moment. Blackwall had literally sat frozen with a spoon dripping soup down into his bowl halfway up to his mouth, as he stared over at the scientist. Frederick touched the corner of his mouth with one of Josephine's fancy napkins, glancing back at them with a frown, "Whatever is the matter? I mean, how much harm could one baby dragon really do?"

Maikhel barked out a choked laugh then, smirking sideways at Frederick, "You've obviously never heard the term 'projectile vomiting' before. I'm trying to imagine it with flames attached. Wait … Its mother actually spat out lightning attacks." He spun his head around to look down the other length of the table, "Bull! It was lightning, right?"

"Oh yea, boss. Big blue balls of electric, sizzling pain that fried our asses." The Iron Bull scratched the underside of one of his horns, pondering, "Pretty sure Cassandra was left with trails of snot running down her face from all her screaming every time the shit zapped her."

Cassandra groaned disgustedly and stood up to leave, "You've succeeded in ruining my appetite, the lot of you." Which prompted more laughter before the rest of the table returned to eating. Maikhel's pale eyes glittered like sparkling gems as he sent a winking smile across the table towards Solas. Because of course Maikhel knew how much Solas struggled to maintain a serious mien, as he turned to pepper Frederick with questions regarding what the Orlesian knew of the feeding of young dragons.

But then Solas heard her telling him. And everything stopped. For one long moment, Solas imagined that one of the dwarves' titans rose up over Skyhold with a massive fist and smashed it into the side of the building. The shock could not possibly be more incredible, he thought.

"The Dread Wolf's blood made our line."

Solas spun around, turning his back on Falon to stare sightlessly at the splotches of color he had put against the wall the night before. Lines of darkest blue ached next to brilliant oranges and reds, the colors mocking him with their strength and notice. He bent his head down, rasping, "Why would the Dalish believe such a thing?"

Falon scoffed, "How do such stories ever begin? Andraste is said to have earned the notice of the humans' Maker. How did _that_ happen?" Her voice firmed into a shell of hard telling, "It's just a story, Solas. It takes many forms – one of our ancestors was tricked into a sordid transaction and forced to give up his daughter who later returned heavy with child, maybe; or the woman herself actually seduced the Dread Wolf, and mourned him when he reviled her afterwards. My personal favorite involves an ancestor who followed him over many years as they shared adventures together." She seemed to smile again, as her voice warmed, "I just like the notion some woman was so strong, and that her blood made my own."

Strong. Yes, she was strong. Solas could picture her just then - the golden shine of her hair gathered into braids and wrapped just above the nape of her neck, her pale, cream-colored skin glistening with perspiration and droplets of blood from their enemies as she swung the blade that blazed with her magic up above her head and yelled a victory cry to the sky overhead. Her blue eyes … dimming with pain when he turned away from her, when he left her standing there. Left her to go on alone.

He _believed_ he was protecting her.

Falon toed the edge of the rug tucked on the floor under Solas' worktable resignedly, working against the threads with the edges of the human boot they insisted she wear in and around Skyhold every day. She shot his back another confused glance, trying to discern the feelings she sensed him struggling with. But Maikhel was always better at such efforts; easily moving past the barriers that most people put up around their emotions so naturally and without real will or thought.

She only sighed then, "It doesn't matter, I suppose. There was a child. They called him Revas. Although why he would be named for freedom, I couldn't say." Of course not, Solas thought. The Dalish didn't remember, didn't know. They kept the vallaslin on their faces, unaware what meaning the marks really conveyed. He clenched his fists tight, his nostrils flaring.

He hoped Revas never colored _his_ face with the vallaslin. Surely she would have kept him from it.

Solas heard his own voice then, like some distant echo of sound. Like it was coming from somewhere far-off and belonged to someone else entirely. He asked Falon, "Was it your father who claimed such ancestry?"

Falon tossed her head back, flinging her nose into the air and snorting with the most profound disgust: "Hardly. According to him, their marriage was a charity since no one else would have her. He practically blamed _her_ for dying on the childbed, and he made sure that I knew it was my entering into the world that killed her." The pain of it was heavy in her voice, and Solas slowly turned around to regard her again. She offered him a humorless smile, inhaling a deep breath, "No. My _mother_ was descended from Revas. Which was bad enough. But then we were twins, too. We had strange-looking eyes. And _both_ of us were magic-strong. The clans whispered, that Fen'harel's bloodline was that much real in us. It's partly why Deshanna turned so much to trade and sharing with the humans, and why we stayed north in the Marches."

Solas felt his throat tighten, his mouth opening although no sound emerged. Not at first. All he could see, was such small children. Marked at birth and fighting for their place from the very start. His _own_. Solas studied Falon dazedly, and she frowned at his expression, the way his gaze slid up and along her face and form. The turn of her every feature, the lilting curve of her chin and almond-shaped curl of her eyes. Such innate curiosity and intelligence in both of them, such incredible magic that just couldn't be contained.

Nothing like he imagined Revas might have looked, though. Revas would have been golden-haired, not like the twins with their ink-black manes. His eyes would have been blue … as blue as the sky over Tarasyl'an. Not pale lavender, like the leaves of the royal elfroot that peeked out from underneath the rocks lining the mountain path up to the gates.

Revas … She named her son for the freedom that was so precious to him.

Wonder filled him, warmed his chest and down into his belly. Pride … And possession. Finally understanding; so many questions answered at last. What magic was still working, and why. Knowing finally that Maikhel held the orb and it only recognized him for what he was, for the blood that flowed in him. It was just enough, is all.

Solas dragged in a long breath, "Only one more question, then." Solas spoke low, leaning closer as he implored her. The pride in his voice stayed real, and he knew she sensed it, could hear it. He only had to understand it all, though. How hard was the stigma, the burden left on them all these years? How much was the price they paid at every turn? "He told me, that it was Dalish who tried to take his ears." They were in the Exalted Plains at the time. But Maikhel argued with Dorian, insisting he return to Skyhold before they met any of the Dalish in the region. The two men were raging back and forth over the issue, until Maikhel did something so much rare for him it caught all of them by the most incredible surprise. He lost his temper, anyway. Even now Solas remembered it with amazement.

"It's only better. You'll be _safer_ , Dorian!" Maikhel had started pacing by then, his slender arms exposed in the set of Inquisition leathers he was wearing at the time. Dust and earthy grit covered him, until his dark hair looked nearly grey in the dying light of the day. The Inquisition soldiers in the camp were gamely pretending not to notice the increasingly loud argument, but their dramatically turned backs only heightened the sense of public spectacle that was the Inquisitor arguing with his lover right there in the wide center of the camp.

"Are you trying to be funny again? It isn't working this time, Maikhel. Did you see that particularly maddened Freemen leader … what was his name? Ah, I remember! Gordian! Damned fellow nearly froze the sweet ends of my hair with those iceballs he was slinging at us! I was in danger then, yes?" Dorian really did roll his eyes, the gray of the orbs glinting like dire steel against the dark-golden skin of his face. Unlike Maikhel, he was well bundled against exposure to the climate. Dorian constantly complained of the cold the South inflicted on his tender senses, but at least he didn't provide any ostentatious sneezes right then. He only demanded seriously, almost shouting at Maikhel, "This isn't about rips and tears made to my mere robes, let alone my damned fine body. Admit it, you don't want your pretty Dalish tribesmen to know what games we get up to together!"

Maikhel spun then, his eyes narrowed on Dorian like flinty shards of ice. And he snarled, trembling with real anger as his hands clenched into tight fists against his sides, "I have never considered the moments I shared with you any sort of damned game, Dorian. But since _you_ do, take it all back to Skyhold because I am not playing with you!" Then he jerked his gaze towards the requisition officer, who was standing like a statue nearby the tents and staring down at the ground stiffly: "Lieutenant! Prepare an escort. I want Dorian Pavus set on top of a horse in the next hour's time and moving down that road posthaste. If he fights you, tie him to the saddle! Am I understood?"

Dorian blanched, "Maikhel …"

But Maikhel held his hand straight up like a blade, his palm faced out, "No! Every word coming out of your mouth at the moment is like a damned needle to my thinning temper. Leave it _alone_!" The slender elf jerked himself around and actually marched out from the circle of tents and tables where the soldiers were milling, moving off into the darkening shadows out past the lines of the camp. They could hear the welcoming nicker of the troop's horses as he skirted them, even. The horses loved the elf almost as much as the people who called him Inquisitor.

Dorian only stood there, frozen and agonized as he stared off in the direction Maikhel went. Then he glanced sideways towards the thick log where Solas was sitting, alongside Sera as she twirled an arrow back and forth between her fingers. The pair of elves were unabashedly staring at him, while Cassandra finished lighting a small fire with stone-faced seriousness. Disapproval washed from the Seeker in veritable waves as she stabbed the small flickers of flame in the circle of wood with a thin stick.

Dorian's shoulders slumped down, and he murmured over at them so slowly, "Please, Solas. He'll likely respond better to you than anyone right now." He glanced back in the direction Maikhel went stalking away, sighing. "I just … I couldn't stand it if something happened to him while he's out there kicking tree branches and probably throwing rocks at fennecs. It's bad enough _I_ hurt him with my stupid, stupid mouth spewing nonsense. A fennec might bite him and draw real blood, though!" Solas smiled at him without mirth.

"You know as well as I do, that even angry beyond all measure I've seen him before Maikhel Lavellan will not cause harm to any creature that isn't warranted." Solas climbed back to his feet and dusted his hands down along his thighs. He gestured towards the tent set up for the Inquisitor, "You know he will not change his mind, however. You should gather your things."

Solas found Maikhel quickly enough, though. Maikhel was too much a Dalish elf to ever wander so far from camp that he became lost or threatened by a wandering beast out of reach of the group.

No, he had only climbed up onto a moss-covered expanse of rock overlooking the Inquisition camp and sat there, staring morosely across the expanse of the Plains at the twinkling lights from the fires made by the Orlesian forces situated throughout the area. He grunted as Solas approached and climbed up to sit down next to him, "I should perhaps feel offended that the Orlesians fight over these lands like it's rightly their own. Except they're fighting each other, rather than my own people. And I can't find it in myself to feel much besides a sense of ironic amusement over the thought."

Solas remained quiet for several more long moments. But eventually he glanced sideways towards the younger elf, "You should speak to him before I take him back to Skyhold. Far more than any of the Orlesian battles here, it will bother you immensely if you don't tell him why you're so frightened at the thought of him coming into contact with the Dalish."

Maikhel smiled sardonically over at Solas, "I didn't scream any orders for you to return to Skyhold, Solas." A brief flush of embarrassment colored Maikhel's neck, brightening the skin just under his ears. Of course his uncharacteristic outburst was bothering him, Solas thought.

Solas merely shrugged, "My friend has died here, though. I would rather travel far from this place for now. I might actually detour off from the Hold for a time, too." Then he turned his head to regard Maikhel more curiously. "Tell me. Was it Tevinters that tried cutting your ears? I assume that's why you're trying to remove _your_ Tevinter from the notice of the Dalish, here. The Dalish do not regard the Imperium … well, I don't think."

But then Maikhel flopped back against the moss growing on top of the rock, to stare up at the darkening sky overhead. He was worrying over the motions his people would make through the dusk hours of the day if he let his directives stand, so that he chewed his lip between his teeth as he admitted offhandedly, "It was _Dalish_ that tried cutting my ears, actually. But you're right. Dorian should know why." They did talk, after Maikhel yanked Dorian inside the tent they shared whenever they were in the field. They even spent that night together.

But in the early morning hours, just as the sun was coming up, Maikhel directed them all to guard Dorian well before waving the contingent of troops back to Skyhold. He never backed down from his determination to keep Dorian away from the Dalish. And Dorian wouldn't speak of whatever Maikhel told him that night, either. Of why it was Dalish who cut Maikhel, who left his jaw scarred by a cruel line and his mind skittering back from any blade coming too close to his face.

So Solas asked Falon, rather. He looked at her with sad brevity weighing on his face and tightening his frame, his pale eyes heavy with … regret, she thought. He asked her, "Was it because they believe him descended from Fen'harel that they attacked him?"

Falon frowned softly, "I'm actually surprised he said that much to you. It's a mark of his trust in you, Solas. He doesn't speak of it, since the truth's right there on his face." Solas raised up one of his eyebrows, only slightly, just briefly acknowledging her correct. Falon shook her head softly, explaining, "There was a human. More a boy than a man, like Maikhel himself. It was a couple of years ago, during one of those summers when Maikhel wasn't sure of himself and Dain'yel together. Father hated that Maikhel … enjoyed a relationship like that with Dain'yel. It made it difficult for them, and they were arguing about Maikhel's commitment to the pairing."

She tapped her fingers against the inside of her elbow, pondering, "Then we attended the gathering. And Maikhel saw the human; one of the tradesmen visiting the human village, as they argued over the sale of horses the clan was making that summer. Just a peddler who agreed to spend some hours with him, swimming at a nearby stream later that night." Her eyes dimmed suddenly with trailing sadness and regret, "The ones who found them there weren't our own clan. They just hated that Maikhel would lay down with a human of all things, said how it proved his blood was tainted when he enjoyed the company of those who destroyed our people. He was just like the Dread Wolf, they said."

"They killed the human in front of him, and Maikhel screamed and screamed to see it. By the time we reached them, they had him down on the ground and were holding his head in place. They told him they would 'make him human enough' and then they showed him the blade. We startled them when we came up there, though, and their cut went wrong and deeper than they likely intended. There was blood everywhere! He thought they had taken his ear." Falon's breath was ragged, "He panicked when we cut the bandages loose from the side of his face later on, you know. Blades nearby his face have made him frantic ever since."

Solas' nostrils were flaring as he looked down towards the floor. How would he look at the scar on Maikhel's face the same way ever again? "How ironic, that it's friendship they would deride him for," Solas sighed roughly. Falon shrugged with weary practicality, "It's only the way of things. I can't imagine it's ever been so much different, really. And why would any of this be important in regards Maikhel's sudden change in diet, is curious."

Solas opened his mouth and then stopped suddenly. Because there was no claim to be made right then, not even a truth either of the twins would welcome. And no matter how much he _wanted_ to tell them, either. So he only bit the truth harshly against the inside of his mouth, until he felt real blood on his tongue. He only told her finally, "Because the dragon's egg is hatching, Falon. Maikhel is bonded with the emerging dragon. Old magic. Very old magic. Much like Fen'harel's magic once was, I do believe."

* * *

 **I swear! This dragon's going to hatch! I just kept writing and writing, and I figured if I didn't cut myself off the chapter would no longer make ANY real sense. Please bear with me!**

 **To me, it was only important that I stress WHY and HOW it was Maikhel who enjoyed this sort of unique bond. The lore doesn't clarify who or what "enemy" that the Dread Wolf was friendly with; so I opted to suppose that he was similarly inclined magically. If Solas was friends with intelligent dragons the way that Maikhel ends up being, it goes far in explaining Solas' enmity towards the Wardens, I think.**

 **So I imagined that Maikhel and his twin are in fact descendants of the Dread Wolf and thus suffer requisite stigmas among the Dalish for it. It's also why they tend to be more open-minded in regards other races and groups. Having been reviled so much of their young lives, Maikhel and his sister don't so typically judge people by their birth or race.**


	4. Chapter 4 -- I Choose You!

He was so _hungry_!

Like a twisting, ripping pain in his belly. It drove him, writhing and jerking against the gentle cradle that surrounded him. Until it cracked, broke and tore into pieces and he tumbled down onto a cold, hard surface. He banged his small, triangle-shaped snout into the straight, dull line dividing the floor's stonework, and he warbled a pained cry.

It hurt, everything hurt. He slipped and slid through the muck and mire of wet, sodden straw and furs of the nest. He wriggled across the floor, his wet, dripping wings flapping soggily against his sides, and he cried and cried - cried so loudly from the shock. He was afraid! And it hurt!

Shouts and yells filled the air, followed by the thudding stomps of feet and rushed motions, steely ringing from blades nearby, and panicked commands – feelings of alarm and terrible, terrible aggression all around him! The emotions battered him, like needling arrows of threat and menace. So many things around him, bigger than they were supposed to be, and surrounding him, gesturing madly at him with long, pointed things designed to hurt him even more. He jerked his triangular head up, trying to find somewhere to hide, somewhere to move. Somewhere - anywhere!

Where was … cold loneliness slid through his hungry belly, then. Like a raw, aching emptiness almost as great as the hunger was, and he really cried, tears slipping down the scales of his face and over his snout to mix with the mucous he was sneezing up over the length of floor all around him. He was all by himself! There was no one, no nesting-mate, no companion. No mother. And he cried, cried even more! He wailed pitifully for someone – for a comforting wing to drape his little form; the warm breath that was supposed to wash over his cold scales and keep him from trembling, shaking; the sweet tingle of energy that would soothe the hunger in his stomach.

Where was she? Where was the one who sang to him as he lay so gently in the thickly warm place? Where did she leave him, where did she go? Why was he all alone, here?

Why was he in this strange, discordant place all by himself? What were these beings that only feared, hated him? They wanted to … fight him and to hurt him. He became angry then. And he yelled back at them, fiercely afraid and determined to be more, bigger and brave enough!

He reared up as high as he could, his dripping wings flaring up and out with little flapping sounds. Fluids flew through the air all around him as he screamed, screamed at them the most terrible threats! Mucous, blood, birthing liquid was everywhere; under his clawed feet, in between the fleshy parts of his toes, and dripping to make plopping sounds from the leathery tips of his wings. But he would rip them, shred them if they touched him. If they came too close!

Then the voice came.

He heard him, heard him yelling almost as loud as his own shrilly frantic voice. Yelling aloud, "Don't! Get back, don't touch him! He's … You're only frightening him! All of you, back off!" Then warmth, the press of a slim form in front of him. He saw long-fingered hands held up over his head, arms outstretched in front of him, shielding him.

So close, so close …. His own favorite voice! The face he dreamed of when he was floating in the warm place.

"Inquisitor!"

"No! It's maddened, Inquisitor!"

"Damned thing'll gnaw off his fingers!"

"We gotta stop it! Before it takes him apart!"

"Don't let it getcha, Inquisitor!"

"Get back!"

He knew this one! The magic snapped and twisted between them, so intense and strong he could see it like it was a sweet color all its own. Like gold and red fire that connected them. Warmer than the egg was; it blanketed him, soothed him and settled him. He crooned, and sang to him. Sang to his chosen one, the one he was _supposed_ to want to and see. Because that's what the dreams told him; that's what the magic whispered to him.

He sang to him, to his chosen. He sang through the magic that bonded them so much fast and strong, sang, " _I choose you. You are my chosen. You are the one I choose. Mine to choose. I am Feyrlion, I am Feyr and I love you, love you, Chosen. You're mine_!"

The slender elf spun around to face him then, and Feyr hummed happy sounds as he stopped and gazed into his Chosen's lavender-colored eyes. He twitched his wings, slowly lowering his head until his snout rested warmly against his Chosen's side and he could feel his Chosen's heart beating strongly, rapidly strong just against his cheek; he warbled more sounds of pleasure and gratitude, that he wasn't alone anymore. He would never be alone again. Never again.

And his Chosen finally touched him! He felt the elf's fingers along the ridges over his eyes, running softly over the bone-strong line of his brow. So warm, so warm. Tingles of electric sensation trembled through his small body, and he shook with the pleasing. His Chosen murmured confusedly, "Chosen? What ...?"

But he didn't remove his fingers. Then his Chosen sang the song, too! He sang down to him as his fingers clasped both sides of Feyr's dragon-head, his voice dancing along the magic until it warmed Feyr's every sense and nerve and he was comfortable and basking. That he wasn't alone anymore. His Chosen _sang_ to him, " _You're Feyrlion. You're Feyr. I'm Maihkel. I can hear you, Feyr_."

And the _belonging_ covered them both.

" _Chosen Maihkel … I am_ so _hungry_."


	5. Chapter 5 -- Dragon's Scream at Adamant

Garrett stepped over the cracked edge of dust-ridden stones that pock-marked the line of hills and dunes overlooking the fortress, and he stopped, staring across the line of sand over at the pair of them standing there. They were perfectly framed by the rising smoke and fire that highlighted Adamant right then, and the dying light of the sun sinking behind the line of horizon. It turned the both of them brilliant gold and orange, like they were flames burning as bright as the passion and love snapping between them just then. They looked like they glowed there, like they were on fire. Or like they _were_ the fire!

The way that dragonling was curled up on the ground nearby their feet really did help set the scene, mind you. The beast was growing fast, but he was still only slightly larger than a wolfhound. Feyrlion lay in the dust and sand, like a leathery drape with a triangle of a head that only smoothed back and forth as he watched the busy motions of the Inquisition and the growing fires over Adamant itself, both. But his tail was looped in a swirling grasp around Maikhel's leg, just up to his knee. As if Feyrlion refused to let Maikhel far enough away he couldn't reach him. At least for the moment.

Maikhel wasn't paying his dragon much in the way of attention right then, though.

No, the Inquisitor was pressed against his lover's chest, his slender face nestled up under his chin so he could nuzzle the underside of Dorian Pavus' jaw. The Tevinter's eyes were closed as he obviously savored the closeness, the elf's soft breaths against his warm skin and the beating pulse of Maikhel's tongue that gently licked along the cords of his neck. Dorian's own hand was raised up, his fingers still bare and ungloved so he could brush gently back and forth along the tip of Maikhel's pointed ear, and he was whispering words in Tevine down into that bladed appendage.

Garrett recognized the phrases, the gentle song of comfort and care that blanketed them both. Recognized and very nearly ached with longing to hear those words whispered in his own ear, too. Fenris' gravelly voice was usually just as fiercely warm and thrilling, as the fires burning over Adamant right now. Except Fenris was so fucking far away … Damn it, he missed _his_ elf.

Dorian was murmuring quietly, gently down into Maikhel's ear: "Et tamdiu messoribus eius. Et erit ibi. My Amatus. I promise you, promise." Maikhel moaned lightly, turning his head slightly enough that his nose bumped just under the curve of Dorian's chin again and he was able to open his eyes to blink dazedly over at Garrett himself. Garrett flinched and dropped his gaze down towards the ground, trying to give the couple a bit more time together. Only a bit. Because the battle was heightening, burning hotter with every moment that passed and nothing would really stop it for much longer.

Garrett clenched his jaw as he looked resolutely away, over their shoulders at Adamant itself. Ignoring whatever fears and worries whipped between the lovers just then. Just easier that way, he figured.

So he looked away. Examining the fortress with keen discernment. The white walls that loomed large and stark in the dusky haze of the day's ending. Tall. Unceasing and even cruel-looking. Garrett could hear the scream of demons rising from behind those walls, their shrieks and pained cries of anger and rage providing a uniquely weird and discordant echo to the rhythm of the battle. Flashes of blue along the wall marked the rushed motions of the defending wardens, huddling behind whatever slim cover they could manage and in there among all those blasted demons, too.

Idiots, the lot of them. Garrett rather believed it better to think of them as idiots, than to despise them for their ruthless determination to use and twist magic obscenely every time it suited their ends. The echoes of his father's pain through that damned prison the Wardens made outside Kirkwall still haunted him, though. So his bias was perfectly understandable, Garrett decided.

The heat of the desert around them felt heavy against his skin, heavy and solid. Garrett spied one of the Inquisition trebuchets being pulled along the sandy track in preparation for the nighttime assault. The men pulling the machine were grunting and calling to one another, words of encouragement and comradery alike. They suddenly reminded him - of Carver actually, of the way his brother seemed to sink into the sense of belonging and teamwork that marked the years he spent as a Templar under Cullen's command. Cullen always did inspire his men to think of themselves more as a solid unit, than they ever lacked value or worth in his estimation. The years they spent in Kirkwall may have proved disastrous in so many ways; but it wasn't for anything that Cullen did, and the city would've suffered far worse if Cullen wasn't there, Garrett believed.

That's what Garrett told him, too. As they stood together over the red, smoking lump of obscene lyrium that Meredith became in that ending, no less. He looked over at Cullen, at the self-anger twisting the Templar's face, and he said to him then, "Don't. Whatever she was, whatever she became – you were better, and you still are. And for fuck's sake, do not ever kneel down to me again. People might get ideas!" Cullen looked over at him, startled. Then he huffed something close to a laugh. Except they were both so damned tired and they practically leaned on each other for a long moment. Right before Cullen leaned forward to grumble under his breath, "Too late, champion. Just … too late. For all of us, I think."

So much meaning there, Garrett realized. Because Cullen knew that nothing would ever be the same again. It was funny in a way, but it was Cullen who said Mages should lead the way through the days since then. First he rallied behind Garrett, supporting him as Viscount of Kirkwall and worked tirelessly next to him so the city could recover. And never mind Garrett's magic, either.

But then he rallied the Inquisition behind a Mage for Inquisitor, too. Yea, Garrett figured Cullen was something remarkable when it came to Templars. Although _he_ swore otherwise. Cullen just showed them all what a Templar was supposed to be, he said. Just as he asserted to Meredith when she tried killing those Mages in the Gallows courtyard that night. "Shouldn't be strange, to do as we're honor-bound to do. To protect the ones who need it the most," Cullen told him.

Maikhel's voice called over to Garrett suddenly, breaking through his meandering thoughts: "Hawke. If you try pulling my ear, I think Dorian's going to let Feyr chomp your toes straight off the end of your foot. Just warning you, mind." Garrett turned around to catch the grin that the Inquisitor was sending towards him then. Maikhel wasn't looking at Dorian as he slanted the joking refrain over at him, although he stood still, both his arms lifted slightly as Dorian continued brushing away imaginary lint and fibers from the front edges of his armored chestpiece. Maikhel pointed at Garrett, "Remember … We're trying to _hide_ how big my ears really are from the all of the Wardens' demons tonight."

Garrett shook his head, biting the inside of his mouth to keep from smiling over at Maikhel's joking banter. Especially when Dorian snorted loudly and slapped ever-slightly along the smooth curve of Maikhel's jaw. The size of the Inquisitor's ears were a source of particular amusement during recent drunken forays in the Herald's Rest, enough that Garrett very truly laughed aloud when that absurd spirit thing that followed along behind the Inquisitor called him a rabbit. A rabbit!

It's why Garrett couldn't help at the time but to reach over and tug on the very tip of Maikhel's pointed ear, laughing, "You should instruct your pet spirit, that rabbits actually have fur-covered ears, rather. Unless he's only ever seen the ones you roast over a fire." It was only Dorian who didn't even smile then, as everyone bent over the expansive table in the tavern from helpless peels of laughter. But the Tevinter's eyes turned steely gray as he watched Garrett's fingers twirl against the top of Maikhel's ear, pointing out the differences between an elf's ears and a rabbit's as Cole sat there staring at the appendage, his boyish forehead scrunched up with confusion.

"Oh. But why don't humans have ears like that, too?" Cole leaned closer, his voice low and easy. Garrett frowned darkly over at him. He didn't really _like_ the spirit, anyway; not some walking, talking spirit out and about in the real world that swore it only wanted to help. Laughable, that. Damned thing waved around sharpy, pointy daggers, and mucked about in your head, to boot.

It just smacked too much of those times he saw Justice shining and snarling at him from out of Anders' eyes. Hard memories, that hurt. That always lead to that night, when he took a blade and stuck it into Anders' back, because Anders was broken and ruined by Justice inside of him. Or Maker! That constant fucking manifesto that after a while didn't seem quite sane, not when it was endlessly recited and recited and recited … In the days after the Chantry exploded, they found an alcove in Anders' clinic literally covered floor to ceiling by sheets and sheets of parchment dotted, crossed-out and liberally covered by ink and scribbles of that damned manifesto. Shit, there are the end Garrett couldn't tell who was crazier. Anders or Justice. Likely both.

But Cole had more a soft innocence about him, rather, that made Garrett want to bundle him back into the Fade just to guard and protect from being ruined like Justice was. So when Cole shrugged and said, "I mean. I like rabbits. Everyone should have ears like rabbits." Well, Garrett almost laughed at him, like him or no.

Garrett shook his head, only letting the corner of his mouth curl slightly with briefest amusement. He ignored the rest of the people still hunched helplessly against the edges of the table. Especially Varric, who didn't even hide the scribbles he was making on some stray sheets of paper he kept tucked inside one of the endless pockets in his jacket. Garrett slowly explained to the spirit, "If everyone had ears like a rabbit's, then rabbit ears would be boring though." Cole seemed to accept that, as if the notion of ears that weren't interesting was reason enough to avoid them was really the most common-sense of ideas ever realized.

"Is that why _you_ like elf ears, then?" Cole's eyes took on the far-away look that typically meant he was considering some sense beyond real understanding. Garrett stiffened into the stone-hard seriousness that most people claimed him when they referred to the Champion of Kirkwall. His eyes were steely flint as he watched Cole become a real spirit again, the seeming-boy intoning so rotely. Like he was reading from a damned book: "Trembling, shaking as he stands in front of the fire. His eyes are green; so green and wide, wide and he asks for my forgiveness. My own forgiveness. He says - I would have told you, I would have said …" Garrett banged his hand down onto the table, suddenly and rough. Like a firecracker exploding into the room, so that even patrons in the rooms nearby fell silent for long moments.

"No. _No_ , spirit. That's mine, and mine alone. So you just. Shut. Up."

Everyone was silent, staring at him through wide, frozen poses all around the table. Mouths were gaping wide, until even the Iron Bull seemed to nearly wake up from his half-dozing drunkenness. Garrett glared around at all of them, one by one – and they all suddenly remembered, how it was said the Champion was hard and cruel and bluntly sharp. But then Dorian sniffed loudly, hardly caring for Garrett's reputed aggressiveness, "Well, then. Care to take your pretty fingers off _my_ elf's ears, please." And several of them snickered as Garrett jerked his fingers back from where he still held Maikhel's ear-tip clenched tight between his two fingers, like he was some child caught stealing a piece of sweet candy from a jar.

Now Garrett sighed roughly, as he wished he wasn't so maker's-damned alone just then. He really did miss Fenris so damned much, hated that the spirit had sensed it so clearly back there in the tavern. Hated it more, that he wouldn't be soothed any time soon he could tell. And the beating press of envy washed through him all over again, as he breathed in and closed his eyes, losing himself for a moment in another, sweeter memory. It involved a naked Fenris, of course. Damn it!

Then the Inquisitor's beast bumped the toe of his boot with that hot, hot snout of his, and Garrett yanked his leg back as if he was scalded, startled back to the present. So suddenly he nearly stumbled, before catching himself. He swore crudely, certain the damned dragonling was snickering up at him from where it continued lounging next to Maikhel's leg. Both Maikhel and Dorian smirked over at him. Why was he even here, surrounded by jokesters claiming to be in charge, Garrett wondered to himself.

But Garrett tightened his lips, just before he sent the dragon a narrow-eyed glaring look, "Remind me to tell you the story about how the high dragon invaded the Bone Pit outside of Kirkwall. She had this nest just full of little baby dragons when we showed up." Garrett noticed how Feyrlion looked up at him. As if he understood every single word. And maybe he did! So Garrett leaned down only slightly, " _Had_ , mind you. Had."

Maikhel shrugged lightly, still smiling as he reached down to pat the side of Feyrlion's ever-growing head. Garrett suddenly wondered where the dragon would be able to sleep once he grew too big to continue its nesting in the Inquisitor's private quarters. Blackwall carved the beast a large, heavy crate where they piled furs and blankets alike for the dragonling to nestle and be comfortable. Like it was the dragon's own bed! Because Solas insisted the pair had to remain close, as their bond continued to grow and strengthen.

Garrett debated with Solas and Maikhel both, that the rarity of the connection might prove one possible explanation for Corypheus' corrupted dragon friend, too. Maybe Corypheus bonded with a dragon, the way that Maikhel had bonded with Feyrlion.

Maikhel actually squirmed when they pondered yet another way Maikhel's story smacked so similar to old Chantry stories of the magisters who invaded the Maker's Golden City. Except Solas shook his head, reminding them, "Corypheus allowed for himself and his dragon to become corrupted. Make no mistake. What he did required will and choice." Implicit was Solas' belief, that Maikhel would not make the same choice. The sheer weight of his assuredness was a compelling thing, until you couldn't help but feel it was true and real.

Garrett sensed there was something to _that_ , too. Some feeling that just slipped past Garrett's understanding. As if there was some tie binding the two elves together, that if only he thought and concentrated long enough he might be able to understand. Except that he sometimes caught Maikhel looking at Solas with a half-bemused expression on his face, too. Like it was something new and strange, and he was trying to figure it out just as much as Garrett was.

Now Maikhel looked off towards Adamant, idly petting his dragon as he rolled his shoulder to maneuver his staff back into proper place in the harness over his back, "Feyr is hardly like some mere high dragon, baby or not. Like comparing humans to those furry beasts Iron Bull spoke of, that live in the trees of Seheron's wilds." Dorian stepped closer, until the two men were standing side by side there on the drop-off that overlooked the Warden fortress, and he murmured jokingly in a sideways glance at his lover, "Are you calling Feyrlion a monkey?"

Maikhel grinned, turning his head to consider Dorian through his strange lop-sided smile. Why his mouth made that quirky twist whenever he joked was confounding to Garrett. He thought it might be an elven trait, except that he had never caught a similar expression from any of the elves he was acquainted with before. Although now that he thought on it, he remembered seeing Solas smile that way once. But Solas didn't smile much, so he might be mistaken.

Maikhel laughed lightly, "Not Feyr, no. Although we may want to make a point of examining _your_ rear-end for a tail, Dor. Bull says, that monkeys have the most adorable tails. I'd love to yank yours, if you had one." Dorian playfully cupped both the cheeks of his bum in his hands and rubbed there flirtatiously, smirking outrageously at the Inquisitor. The both of them descended into an amusing series of bantering jokes about the size and shape of Dorian's ass, then.

But Garrett favored Maikhel's dragonling with another long, discerning look. It wasn't the first time he examined the creature. Hard not to, since the thing pranced and glided behind the Inquisitor through Skyhold's hallways and stairwells very much every day the past months since his hatching.

And the Inquisitor was _always_ busy in and around Skyhold; so that that dark-haired diplomat of theirs chased after him with writing instruments in-hand, even. Garrett rather thought Maikhel made something of a game of it, even. Which Garrett had to admit, there _was_ something purely amusing about watching the pretty woman sidle her way along the central area of the stables to avoid piles of horse shit touching her slippers only because the vaunted leader of the Inquisition was spending some particular day helping to muck out some of the stalls. Maikhel helped work in just about every nook and cranny of the Hold, even. Garrett caught sight of him scaling some scaffolding to inspect the lines of mortar being used to seal cracks in the walls one day, because one of the workers had been injured days earlier.

Garrett pondered towards Cullen at one point, "Does it embarrass you, though? He's your own Inquisitor, and he's got real dirt _and_ crap under his fingernails more often than I can count." Garrett's advisors, when he was still Viscount, constantly berated him for every damned smudge or hair out of place, every time his clothes weren't so neatly pressed or whenever his shoes were covered by gunk from the walkways of Kirkwall's Lowtown alleys. Or just when his breath smelled wrong! They told him, "Appearances are everything. You must maintain the prestige of your office." Fuck prestige, he used to snort back at them.

Seemed the Inquisitor felt the same way, although he didn't proffer such colorful phrasing on the subject. Maikhel's days were long, too; with the day's first meals being served in Skyhold's main hall before even the sun was up.

Because that's when the Inquisitor started his work in and around the Hold – usually striding along with Cullen to practice with the soldiers in the central yard, or overseeing the growing plants in the fields nearby or the animals being birthed in the stables, or just ducking out of sight before Josephine could really catch up to him. Eventually he retreated to the stillroom, where he handled various herbs and chemicals. Most of which stank to high heaven, Garrett thought. That room seemed to be his own favorite space in Skyhold, actually. Maybe because few people were brave enough to stick their heads through the doorway.

By midday, the Inquisitor was working in the library with Solas or Dorian, and sometimes the both of them. Looking for answers to questions that quite frankly boggled the mind. Garrett once caught sight of Maikhel sitting on the floor of the library, his face buried so far into the pages of a book he had a smudge of ink blotting his attractively-turned nose – on the floor, because the stacks of books he was hunting through were piled on all the chairs nearby him just then. Maikhel's afternoons were spent looking over maps in the war room with his advisors, marking and signing reams of papers as they went, or he was considering potential judgments with Josephine. Only Dorian seemed much able to drag him away from working, sometimes literally, and usually only long after the sun had dropped under the horizon and the sky outside was dark.

But Cullen only shrugged at the question of grime that often coated the Inquisitor by the end of each day, joking, "Please don't ask him to tell you what he puts _into_ the dirt he uses to care for his precious plants. Especially not before you sit down to eat." Then Cullen shrugged, "But I'm hardly embarrassed, no. Our people adore him, Hawke, and not only because he's the Herald. It's more, that he works right there alongside them. Every single day."

Feyrlion suddenly straightened up as high as he could, his dragon wings flaring out with a snapping, flapping sound like leather being stretched over a wide frame. And he hissed a sizzling gout of electric flame towards the yawning, burning fortress across the sand. Feyr's tail tightened around Maikhel's leg, but he didn't pull or otherwise jerk the Inquisitor. But Maikhel lifted his chin and gaze abruptly, looking over at Adamant with a seriousness that made him suddenly appear like one of the ancient sculptures of elves that persisted in the most old regions of Thedas. Like a judge, set to bring justice down on those committing the worst wrongs.

No more joking, it seemed. Maikhel's voice was firm and hard rather, and he was now the Inquisitor. Leading men to war and dying. He told them, "Feyrlion senses some … there's magic here. Something's nearby - terrible rifts are being made. Deliberately made. And something's closer suddenly." Garrett shifted, feeling the snap of the magical bond between the Inquisitor and his dragon. He looked at the dragon, its wings expanded like a protective curtain between Maikhel and the fortress of Adamant.

Feyrlion was bigger, Garrett realized. Even in the days since they traveled to this spot from Skyhold, no less. The dragon was an impressive size for a youngling thing just barely past its hatching, slightly larger than the biggest hounds and nearly as big as a small pony. But he hadn't seen its real wingspan for weeks, and Garrett realized now that Feyrlion's eventual growing might possibly make him a rival in size to a real High Dragon. Never mind that Garrett had never heard of any Drake that reached such a size. Most of the male dragons in Garrett's experience were much smaller than their female counterparts, so they seemed to act like minor and slavish consorts to the female dragons, rather. Garrett didn't think Ferylion would ever be any sort of _common_ drake, though.

Figures. Only the leader of the Inquisition that was steadily shaping the entirety of Thedas would manage to bond with a dragon that was quite as unique as he himself was, of course.

Garrett thought the dragon was nearly as gorgeous, too. Feyrlion's scales seemed pearly, almost glowing with luminescent fervor. They were darkly purple, like the sky itself when the last hint of sunlight was just bleeding away into twilight. Except for his belly and the inner parts of his legs, where the scales were golden like coins and metals. His claws and teeth were black and razor sharp, only he never snapped or threatened any of Skyhold's people. Not even when he was hungry enough to whine and moan from the pangs, mind you. As if he knew how precious the people were to Maikhel, and harming any of them was outrageous.

But right then, Garrett understood. That anyone who hurt Maikhel, hurt Maikhel's people – _those_ were the people that Feyrlion would turn his claws and teeth upon. The Wardens might have been really screwed, if Feyrlion was only slightly older. Garrett chuckled, "Lucky them, heh. Given another month, and your pretty lizard might've been able to rip through the walls the way they're ripping the Fade open."

Maikhel grinned over at him, that adorably lop-sided smile as usual. The Inquisitor shrugged, "I'm certain, that allowing the Wardens another month wouldn't have made for much more luck for us, either." He smoothed his elven fingers along the nubs on the top of Feyrlion's head, where horns were just beginning to emerge, and he sighed, "So Feyr will be staying close to Falon, here in camp tonight. He can practice attacking anyone who thinks to get too close to my sister, hmm?"

Garrett grunted, "Does that include your general, then?"

Maikhel rolled his eyes, even as he reached out to check the ties securing his packs along his waist and hips. Because no one marched into a confrontation without gathering necessary supplies to carry him along. "Don't you dare sound so much like Solas now. Why he's suddenly decided to act like an over-protective father confuses me. _And_ Falon knows her own mind and heart enough to judge who to give her attentions to, and who to avoid." Maikhel shrugged, "But I happen to like Cullen, too."

Garrett stepped closer, eyeing the sideways glance that Feyrlion turned on him only slightly even as the dragon slowly settled back down onto the ground again. Apparently Garrett passed muster when it came to protecting the Inquisitor, he thought, amused. Then he slowly turned around to Maikhel's back, examining the fit and connections of the Inquisitor's armor against his back. Garrett murmured, "I wouldn't mind the friends who feel fatherly to me, though. It's the ones who plot just to use you, to further their own sneaky aims that you have to be concerned about."

Maikhel frowned, canting his head sideways only so slowly. "That presumes the ones who feel fatherly don't have some sneaky aim they're seeking to take advantage of, too, doesn't it?"

And then Garrett scowled, too.

* * *

The young dragon screamed.

There was no other word to describe it. Feyrlion screamed, the peeling terror he was feeling seemingly consuming him as he tossed his draconic head backwards and shouted towards the sky overhead. Everyone nearby winced in abject sympathy, especially when the booming sound of stone and mortared brick shattering and collapsing off the side of the fortress filled the air.

Cullen breathed out, "Maker's breath." Then he turned, pointing roughly towards a gathered group of soldiers, "You there! Men! Make for the northern section of the fortress walls … see if you can locate the Inquisitor! Remember, he was in pursuit of the Warden commander Clarel and that damned Tevinter mage, Erimond, too. Find them!" But he didn't stop to watch them rush away, either. He knew that soldiers tended to find comfort in having a task-filled direction, so that it was enough to give them so much.

For him, it was providing seeming comfort to a suddenly distraught dragon. But nothing in Cullen's experience allowed him to know where to even begin though, and he only looked across the sandy ground and through the opening of Maikhel's tent at the frightened dragonling. He was frozen in place. He only looked into Feyrlion's wide, scared eyes, and he suddenly realized how much Feyr's eyes had turned slowly just as brilliantly lavender as Maikhel's. Why hadn't he noticed it before, Cullen wondered bemusedly.

Feyr's eyes were filled with terror, fear – so much fear. They glistened wetly, too, so that Cullen imagined he would finally discover if dragons were capable of crying. And he wanted to somehow comfort the young dragon. Except how did you comfort a beast capable of ripping straight through your toughest armor at the skin and muscle of your body, heh?

And then Cullen heard her. He heard Falon, as she stepped closer to the dragon and started humming then. The smooth, calming cadence of her tone rose up over the rumbling noise of the battle still raging nearby, the cracking whip of explosions and rising flames from the fortress. Until even Cullen himself felt the tension easing off from his shoulders, and he very nearly felt like settling back onto the very ground to sleep. The dragon _did_ ; Feyrlion slowly eased down into a ball of scaled and clawed dragon, his wings curled around himself there on the bundle of furs in the corner of Maikhel's large tent, and he closed his eyes to sigh into sleep.

 _There_ was Falon's magic. Cullen had imagined her sense of people's emotions was so much different than her twin's, that only Maikhel could discern the truth of a man's feelings and judge him accordingly. But Falon was able to slowly turn someone's feelings away from that kind of struggle, could manipulate someone into feeling so much different, too.

No wonder their Dalish clan had held onto the both of them, rather than separate them as was traditional. No. Together, they were a brilliant double-edged tool, that turned just so could be used to control direction and place with nearly ruthless certainty perhaps. Especially when you considered they were both still so much young. What could they do together, given time enough to actually _develop_ the talents? Real power only grew over time, after all.

Cullen watched Falon lower her chin down against the soft curve of her collarbone, closing her eyes as she reached out with all of her senses. Her dark, dark hair was matted into a braided bundle against the back of her head, and dusted with sand and grit enough it almost looked golden brown in the light coming off the nearby fires. Sweat dotted her forehead, as her soft, lavender eyes slid closed. Cullen concentrated on his breathing, counting the pulses of air moving between his nostrils as he watched her. He resolutely ignored the desire slowly heating his blood just then.

Because Maker, but she was beautiful.

Falon turned her head suddenly, eyeing the opening of the tent with her eyes narrowed tellingly. She rasped out, "Cole. Please, tell me he isn't gone. I can't _feel_ him!" Cullen startled. He actually stumbled a step closer as he suddenly remembered, as if realizing Cole was there and had been there the entire time. Damn it! He hated it when the spirit did that!

Cole stood just inside the opening of the Maikhel's tent, looking up at them from under the wide brim of that absurd hat he always wore. He was frowning over at the sleeping dragon just then, his brows drawn together into the strange confusion that seemed to mark his features most of the time. Cullen knew why people seemed to regard him with affection so much of the time, because it was blessedly hard to disdain the real innocence which composed Cole's expressions more often than anything. Now Cole softly bit the corner of his lip, gathering himself before he murmured, "Not gone. He's _in_ the Fade. Ferylion felt him fall into the Fade, felt him become lost there."

Falon's eyes widened and her lips compressed into a narrow line. Cullen understood how she was feeling, as he himself turned to gape at the spirit open-mouthed. He only knew he likely looked incredibly stupid. But the shock and surprise alike was just too enormous to be contained, Cullen thought. He actually barked at Cole, "That can't be. The last time that happened, the Magisters ruined the world."

Cole shook his head slowly, unperturbed and calm as he seemed to concentrate on whatever he was feeling through the bond the dragon shared with the Inquisitor. As if he could see through the dragon's dreams precisely where Maikhel was right then. "No. It wasn't their mere presence that ruined the world, but their intention. Their purpose there broke everything apart. But _he's_ different. He only wants to get back … has to get out, through the Rift. The one in the center yard, that the Wardens were making." Cole slowly rolled his shoulders, concentrating, "Have to get Dorian out. And Iron Bull. The Iron Bull is _afraid_ , not like Solas. Solas is happy, excited … But he only wants them all out of the Fade now. The Inquisitor is fighting to get them back out, and his love for them makes him different than the Magisters ever were."

Cullen inhaled slowly, feeling his anxious tension draining away. He turned his golden-haired head to look back over at Adamant again, and a slow, satisfied smile curled along his lips. He felt the press of the armor against his chest, the slow trickle of sweat sliding down along the muscles there and the sand that persisted in finding its way past the edges of the armored plates no matter how many times he used water to splash over the top of his head for the briefest of baths. He felt the heavy press of the armor on his body, and he became certain.

Cullen lifted his voice, so that his orders carried over towards those of his soldiers who lingered nearby the lines and waited for his commands, telling them, "We must secure the fortress. Rally alongside the loyal Wardens, the ones not fallen to Corypheus' control." He shouted over towards them, "Because the Inquisitor is still fighting! He's fighting! Through the Fade itself!"

The Inquisition roared! They roared! And they marched forward all over again.


	6. Chapter 6 -- The Dragon Flies

There was a crispness to the air, sharp enough it stung the back of his throat when he breathed in so that Maikhel watched his breath ghost in front of his face as he exhaled roughly. He lifted his gaze up, examining the pearly fingers of rose-colored clouds overhead that signaled the start of a new day. The days were fast sliding away, Fall quickly turning towards Winter and Winter months in the South were like … how did Dorian put it, again?

Maikhel huffed an amused grunt as he leaned his slender frame against Feyrlion's scaled ribcage for a moment. He patted the dragon's shoulder, splaying his gloved fingers along his friend's smooth, leathered hide, explaining, "Dorian said, the South's version of Winter is like some starving beast, and your every shiver is its food." Feyrlion actually shuddered, so that his wings fluttered along his back. The dragon bent his neck, turning to look downwards at Maikhel even as he spread apart his front legs into an arching curve that twisted over the elf's head.

The adolescent dragon liked the cold bite of the air just about as much as Dorian, actually. Which was pretty much … not at all, rather. But Feyrlion's snort sizzled briefly against the cold air instead of freezing. It sparked brilliantly into a small flash before the dragon sucked the air back into his own inhale to keep it from being anything really frightening.

It also made the smallest bubble of warmth right around where they were standing. How he warmed the Undercroft where he settled to sleep at night, with the forges nearby and the sky winking at him from the opening at the far end, too. He enjoyed making the space around his own self just that much warmer and pretty, to boot. So Maikhel smiled as he leaned into the soft heat that hung there against the dewy morning air. Feyrlion hummed happily when he saw Maikhel's pleasure, assured him, " _But_ I'm _a dragon. I can burn the beast away - only watch me!_ "

Maikhel chuckled, "Even _you_ may find defeating Winter too much a challenge, though." Maikhel dropped down, leaning forward far enough to reach the thick straps which secured the leather harness and saddle onto Feyrlion's back. He pulled on the metallic plate that connected the straps so much in the center of Feyrlion's chest, just over the dragon's heart.

Maikhel was the one who designed the saddle. With Dennet, of course. The two men worked rather longer-than-average hours bent over various pieces of leather that might work to create a working saddle to fit over a dragon's back, both of them tucked up in Skyhold's stables as they pondered the moving shape of Feyrlion's form and gait up against more traditional riding animals.

Along with wondering how much bigger the dragon would grow, to boot. Feyrlion was nearing seven months old now, and already larger than Maikhel's favored mount, Enasal. Considering the chance Maikhel could truly ride the dragon, Dennet practically guffawed a barking laugh, "Thought the sight of you perched so proudly atop a horse was mighty impressive, you looking so arrow-straight and true a thing. But a _dragon_ -rider, to boot?" Dennet thumped Maikhel in the center of his back, so that the elf stumbled forward a good two paces before catching himself from falling, "Inquisition, no one'll ever call you some little halla-rider after seeing you sitting on the back of a full-grown dragon. Mark me on it."

Now Feyrlion braced his thick fore-legs apart, so that Maikhel had space enough to reach the straps and check that all the connections were strongly certain. The clank of metal and stretching leather swirled through the cold, hazy morning air, as Feyr sent some more puffs of electric breath winging above their heads. To keep his own Chosen-Maikhel warm, at the least. " _But I won't let it bite you. No mere beast will take you from me_." Maikhel could feel it – could feel the dragon's committed care, Feyr's determined love in every breath he made into the air.

That's what Solas told him, when they asked and gathered together in the War Room. All the legends and myths of the ancient magics, the ones Solas said were so long ago that not even pictures in the oldest elven ruins told that much of the tale. So much lost, Solas said. "I had thought the images I saw in the Fade mere dreams, rather. Even the most incredible wishes can become real in the Fade, anyway. But bonds between dragons and their chosen partners … Yes, I suppose I did see that much. And the price of it, too." Because every great magic comes with a price, a burden. Sometimes an obligation, or a demand. Once the magic's made, there's no turning back, though - no stopping it.

Because a dragon that chooses, Solas said. A dragon _chooses_ for every beat of his own heart. Destroy the chosen, and the dragon perishes as well. And it was Cullen, the Inquisition's general who pondered their enemy and any possible weakness they might exploit on the battlefield, who wondered over Corypheus' vulnerability, too, and he asked the elven mage, "But does such a thing work in reverse, as well? Bring down the dragon, and wouldn't the chosen one perish?"

Solas lifted his chin then, "No. Draconic magic is a uniquely nuanced thing, mind you. And perhaps why so few dragons of the world today invest so much in the beings around them, as well." He canted his head sideways, so that the light from the lanterns in the war room where they'd met to talk sent orange shadows across the top of his head, "But a dragon's chosen can survive well past his dragon's death. Heal and thrive again, even."

They all stared at Solas for a long moment. Until Maikhel finally murmured, "Then why? Why would any dragon do such a thing?"

Solas looked off from them, then. Almost like he was pondering some distant memory or truth, rather than standing there in the war room, with Maikhel and his advisors all gathered around the immense table and its maps. "Because a dragon's magic is born from the breadth and power of the emotions of those beings gathered around them. Simple feelings give simplest magic, the most minor of strengths and abilities. But the more heady the feeling, the greater the dragon becomes – fear, anger, passion, rage. Such things can be … everything, can actually _shape_ the dragon." Then he turned his soulful gaze to them. "The dragon who loves and is loved, though? That is a dragon who's shape is greater than anything you might dream. As I called it, a thing that's precious. And _rare_."

It awed Maikhel all over again, to be so damned important to any being in the whole of the world.

It was no matter of quantity, not that Feyrlion loved him so much more or less than anyone else did. Maikhel certainly didn't doubt he was loved, at all; his own Dorian loved him, his sister loved him, his friends did. He was fairly certain his Clan had loved him when he was still small and toddling around under the Halla hooves that pulled their aravels.

When he tumbled out of the Fade, there in the courtyard at Adamant – that look on Dorian's face still warmed Maikhel's memory, soothed the ever-lying fear that a human only wanted him for the turn of his pretty eyes and curve of his slender rear. Humans generally just sang how pretty their elves were, anyway.

Not that Maikhel really worried so much that Dorian wanted him for the title Inquisitor or Herald which everyone else seemed to appreciate more than anything. Because while Dorian might laugh how much the Imperium considered him a pariah; Maikhel knew it hurt him. And being the Inquisitor's lover wouldn't soothe any of his homeland's angst even in the least. Such a relationship only soured his country's love of him that much more, rather. So when Maikhel caught that look on Dorian's face, saw the incredible fear and gloomy loss that bled away into pure, possessive relief, he felt so much awed relief.

Because then Dorian loved him quite a lot.  
And just for him, too. For _who_ Maikhel was, as much as the prettiness of his features and what pleasures he could offer, even.  
Maikhel _knew_ it. The way he knew what Dorian's heartbeat sounded like whenever he laid his pointed ear along the center of Dorian's chest late in the nighttime hours.

But Feyrlion's love for Maikhel was blood-strong, and magical, too. Like Maikhel was the very air moving through Feyr's lungs maybe. Like he would die without Maikhel, without the sound of Maikhel's voice or if he lost the thump of Maikhel's laughter. To be loved like that was something … powerful. As much as the lightning Feyr could make with a single blasted shout. Electric, sparking, and brilliant.

So Maikhel hesitated there under Feyrlion's larger frame, easing his fingers off from the straps long enough to just barely lean his forehead against the immense dragon knee just alongside him right then. He crooned some small sound, only softly. But Feyrlion quivered from the pleasing sensation, enough that his wings fluttered along the length of his back and he breathed out a long, sizzling sigh that made the cold air freeze into diamond-bright crystals overhead.

He murmured into Maikhel's awareness then, in that strange way no one else could hear or understand. To Maikhel, it was a crooning, an imploring appeal. Only a sound beyond the reach of people's senses, except for his own. He told Vivienne when she asked him how it felt, how it _seemed_ – was it like a touch or a feeling against your skin, did it work like an emotion, or was it more like bells that rang so vividly strong they became soundless, she asked him – and Maikhel finally chuckled, "I'm curious, Vivienne. If you had to explain the difference between red and blue to a person blind since birth, how would you start?" It was enough that he heard Feyr's voice, even if it was only ever in his own mind.

" _Tell me the story again, Chosen. I like it_ ," Feyrlion begged him so lightly, shifting his shoulders so that the saddle's straps stretched back and forth along his upper ribs and the buckles clattered with metallic ringing.

Maikhel clucked his tongue and nodded approvingly when the saddle on Feyr's back barely moved. The last thing he wanted was to slip straight-off the blasted thing once the dragon was really moving. That would prove a humiliating and abrupt end to his own illustrious career, anyway. Although then, his epitaph would be truly funny, Maikhel imagined, smiling to himself: "Here lies the heralded Inquisitor – who jumped out of the Fade but in the end just couldn't keep himself in the saddle." Then he settled down on the freezing ground between Ferylion's splayed-wide feet, considering the line of the horizon that was deepest purple and fast turning to orange as the sun peeked over the line of mountains far-off.

Maikhel watched the sun rising, listening to the sounds of the Hold wakening to a new day nearby, "It's not truly a story, Feyr."

" _But I like it_." Feyrlion lowered his head to regard Maikhel in his curled position there on the floor of the Undercroft, and softly flicked against the top of his head with only the tip of his dragon tongue. He chuffed amusement when Maikhel swatted over his head with one slender hand and harrumphed playfully, "Hey!"

Then Maikhel relaxed again, letting his laughter bleed away into contemplation again. And his voice proved an incredible cadence against the icy snow that filled the opening of the Undercroft and the popping sounds coming from fiery strength of the banked fires in the forge right then. There was a lilt to his words, in the accent that hinted at the years he spent moving through and across the Free Marches and among his own Dalish people.

"Horses are far bigger than the Halla. Our own clan's Halla tender told us horses were dumb beasts, who's only real benefit was that they could manage to carry those bigger humans around the Marches. But Dain'yel loved them. There was almost magic in the way he called to them, to the horses - and they listened to what he promised. As if they knew he spoke true when he told them how much he admired them, cared for them. Our clan's herd of horses grew well and fast under Dain'yel's hands."

"My favorite of the horses he asked me to ride, was a large, sturdy beast that Dain called Alas. Earth, like the dirt under his huge hooves. That's what his name meant in the Dalish tongue. But I felt … like I was _flying_ as he moved over the ground fast like the Halla. Like the wind, almost! I clung to his hair that grew along his neck and laughed so loud. Because I thought my head was as high as the clouds in the sky and because my father was so angry when he saw me, too."

"My father thought I cared about the horses too much. Or that I cared about Dain'yel too much, maybe. I tried to calm his worries, even took Ghilan'nain's marks when it came time for my blood writing. It wasn't ever enough to please him, though."

Feyrlion shifted uneasily. Feyr always sensed the pain that lurked in his Chosen during this part of the story, and typically turned it in some better direction. But today was a day for rebellion and confrontation. For setting old wounds aside. For finding new directions, new ways. Moving forward, even. So Feyrlion prodded the always-bleeding hurt that ached in Maikhel's heart, " _Your father was called Hanin. It means Glory_."

Maikhel sighed, turning slightly enough his nose prodded against the scaled side of Feyrlion's knee and he counted several breaths as he paused there. He remembered his father suddenly, the shouted words of reprimand and disappointment that rang out against the sides of the closed canvas of the aravel which he knew the entire clan could hear and the burning brightness of his father's blue eyes. _That_ argument was the hardest, the ugliest they ever made, and prompted his father to try marrying Falon to strangers from other clans afterwards, too. It hurt to remember it.

"Hanin was always determined to see me be that Glory he wanted for himself, really. It was enough I could create magic when I was very young. But as I grew older — well then I insisted Falon be instructed alongside me instead of sent far away, I rode the horses and hunted with Dain'yel and then … well, there was more with Dain'yel, too. Oh, there were other things, doubts that I shared and questions I asked – I _liked_ the stories about Fen'harel even though I was supposed to be shamed by my blood; and then I explored every ruins we came across with Falon, read books written by the _humans_ of all things, and I … While Deshanna smiled at me for my curiosity and interests, Hanin was only … disappointed." Maikhel inhaled a rough breath, "When they tried taking my ears, there at the Arlathvhen, at the gathering … Hanin said that he only wished for a 'better son, rather than a murdering daughter and some misshaped, broken and selfish boy'. I stopped thinking of him as my father then."

"Hanin made sure that the horse called Alas was sold to the humans when the trades were made at the gathering; to toughen me, he insisted. But it broke me, in ways I didn't really understand. I just knew that I was suddenly like Alas; that I didn't really belong among the people anymore. It didn't matter how much I loved them, even. They almost cut my ears and then they broke my heart, and that I could find my own father in such meanness meant I … I just could not stay there." Maikhel looked up, when the sun finally shined bright through to where he was sitting and its rays splashed across the sharp, arching lines of the vallaslin on his face, "I still feel so much _free_ when I am sitting astride a horse, Feyr. Like I could go anywhere, like I belong right there. With the wind in my face and the sky flashing overhead. It's energy and movement. All while _belonging_ to something more."

Feyrlion lifted his own head, his eyes glittering with violet fervor as he saw the dawning day and he promised Maikhel firmly, " _I'll give you that much, Chosen. We'll hold the Sky here, in this place. Because we finally_ belong. _This is home, this place and these people. The Inquisition is our clan together_."

Neither one of them noticed the elven mage watching them from the shadowed entrance to the Undercroft, the studied expression on his face as he listened to them. Solas watched them both, there in the place where dragons once nested happily together and where a new dragon was at last making his own place again.

He watched the Inquisitor climb smoothly astride the dragon, so both his legs stretched wide around the dragon's neck just above the curve of his leathered wings. Watched as Maikhel belted himself into the saddle and secured his legs into harnessed connections against Ferylion's sides, then gripped the lines of leather strappings extending to the buckled restraints on the dragon's chest. Watched Feyrlion rise up, watched his wings lift and stretch out wide until the clawed end of one wing almost brushed the side of the Croft wall, even.

Solas inhaled a single gasp and held it.  
Just as Feyrlion stepped out onto the Sky itself.  
With Maikhel sitting atop him, holding tight.

The last thing Solas could hear then, was Maikhel's laughter that rang out as brightly strong as the sunlight spilling across the snow there on the floor of the suddenly lonely Undercroft.

* * *

 **So my very first play-through involving a Dorian-romanced Lavellan, was with a warrior called Dain'yel. For the longest time, I considered Dain'yel my canon. I enjoyed the notion that Dorian could love someone so much, who had no real magical talent worthy of note besides the mark on his hand. But ultimately and through subsequent play-throughs of the story, I truly came to feel that the Inquisitor was a Mage rather than a Warrior. When I played Maikhel's story, I knew it was the "right" one for me. But it made the most sense to think Maikhel lost someone there at the Conclave when Corypheus destroyed it; that he was personally invested in fighting back. And that's how Dain'yel remains so much a connection to Maikhel's story.**


End file.
